Project Seven
by burnt.rose84
Summary: Born to be Project Seven, life was made to be difficult... But running into our favorite heroes on their own mission to uncover the Allspark, they notice that perhaps their fates were more alike than previously thought... [Movieverse]
1. Escape from Hell

Hey all! I've decided to try my hand at Transformers as well as continue on with my Inuyasha fanfiction. If there are any abnormalities in this story, I do not mind, polite, correctional gestures, just keep in mind that sometimes I tend to write by the seat of my pants so I might miss something now and then. I hope you all enjoy it!

I suppose I should add one of these in there too, just in case of any questions. :

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, and have never made claims to this fact, as well as I never will. This writing is from my own idea which goes along with the movie "Transformers", but I add my own little zing to it. I DO, however, own Project Seven... So back off it's mine! MineMineMineMineMine!!

Also, I just wanted to let you all know, that there are slight "Full Metal Alchemist" undertones, but I am not considering this a crossover, for the fact that I am not using any characters or story-lines from that show, which, by the way, I also do not claim any ownership to.

--

Behind the cold, steel bars of a small prison, there were only the basic things that a human would need to live, with the exception of foods. There was a chair, a toilet, which seemed to be held together by a weak jerry rig type of device, and there was a bed. On the outside frame of the steel bars was a sign, bolted to the door of the cell. A number "**7**" seemed to be embossed on the front. Now there was one other thing in the cell, but it was not indigenous to other accessories. It was a young woman. Her tired body lay on the hard mattress atop the bed frame. Her medium length, brunette hair seemed to flow down her back as she lay on her stomach. Her blue eyes were closed tightly as if her dreams were only turning into nightmares. Her left hand clenched into the pillow, and her teeth clenched. Apparently her dreams really are terrifying.

Not more than a few second later, a loud "CLANG" awoke the girl from slumber and she jumped from her sleeping position to sit up.

"Number Seven! You're progress review is today," A man in a white lab coat announced as he kept his head down, scribbling something on a clipboard.

The man looked up at the girl after just a few moments and said, "You should be sure to be ready. They're going to want you to speak to them this time."

The girl only peered at the man through the cell bars and said nothing.

The man was getting annoyed with this and said, "Look, if you don't start speaking soon, they're going to... They're going to terminate the project... Don't you understand?!"

The girl looked away from him, again, saying nothing.

"I know you understand me! It's nearly been six years since you've said a word! But if you don't start talking, they're going to assume that you're a dysfunctional project and have you..." The man stopped in mid-sentence and looked down at his clipboard once again.

"I know you miss her... It was a loss for all of us... But I'm sure that she wouldn't have wanted you to destroy yourself like this... Your choice I suppose, though..." The man walked away after his quiet remark.

The girl looked back up through the bars, which outside of them, overlooked what seemed to be a huge laboratory. Men and women in white lab coats running back and forth from one thing to the next. There also seemed to be a work table, which on it sat several trays of food, which the technicians were picking at from time to time.

The girl's stomach growled with hunger and she looked down to it. She put her right hand over the grumbling area, which seemed not to be a hand of flesh and blood. It was a hand which seemed to be cold, hard steel itself. The metal was made from the tips of the fingers and ran up into the shoulder socket, looking like some robot thing that you would only see in a science fiction cartoon perhaps.

_"I only hope that I can hold off for a little longer..."_ her thoughts finished as she stood up.

The girl walked over to the group, and placed her hands through a large space in the door. The board was placed over her wrists and locked into place. It seemed as though this would keep her hands from straying where they didn't want them to, as well as a way to keep her from even touching her fingertips together.

The door was then unlocked, and the girl walked out of the cell. Both of the guards put a hand on either of her shoulders and the group walked down several long corridors, as well as taking several different elevators, before reaching a room, which was enclosed by a set of double doors. One guard took post on the outside of the doors, opening the one on the right, and the other guided the girl into the room, followed by the two lab technicians. They approached one more door, this one being a large, thick, metal door with several locks on the outside of it. The second guard attended to this one, taking post outside of it as well, as the lab technicians and the girl walked inside.

The room was small and darkened. There were very few lights. A few desk lamps on a long table, which also sat several men and women. About six in fact, four men, and three women. A metal chair sat in the middle of the room, facing the group, which the girl was led to sit in.

Without haste, one of the men at the table spoke.

"Number seven, good to see that you're still alive and well," he said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

There was no response from the girl except for the silent glare to each of them.

"Still not speaking are we? Then, perhaps, we need to test this challenge for a while longer. Your predecessor managed to live just a day longer than you are at right now, so maybe by then you'll give in, eh?" Another man spoke.

The girl managed a slight shock expression before she returned with another sharp glare, on the verge of an all out snarl.

A woman on the council gave a large smile and said, "She doesn't seem to like that! We may get a response sooner than we think!"

The other woman on the council, who sat down at one end of the table spoke up, "No one else sees this as being overly cruel?! The girl has been punished enough! We should allow her at least the basic amounts of food per day!"

"The girl is an important project, Lillian... We created her, as well as the others, under the ideals of creating a human capable of being an army of one in battle. Not with the ideals of creating yet another delicate life form..." A different male voice spoke angrily.

"Then it's decided! The girl will go without food until she speaks... or until she dies! Perhaps then, she'll learn to speak again!" The head of the table announced as he motioned for the lab technicians to take her away.

The technicians pulled the girl from the seat from under her arms and led her out of the room once more. Opening the door, the guard that had taken post outside of the door rejoined them and took hold of the girl's left shoulder, gripping it tightly. They walked through the set of double doors, and the other guard joined them as well.

Walking through the corridors, the girl couldn't do anything but think angrily.

_"They're going to kill me... They don't even care about their precious project anymore, they just want to hear me beg them for a small amount of food... Well I won't beg them! I refuse to! I'll die before I say one word to them!...No... I won't even give them the pleasure of seeing me die... This is going to end NOW!" _The girl was, currently, in an elevator and decided on a plan to hurry and leave. She feigned illness and dropped to the ground, still sitting on her knees. As soon as the guards reached down to pull her up she reached her arms up and struck them in the heads with the board that held her arms apart. The guards took some steps back, holding their bleeding faces as the girl got to her feet and struck both of the lab technicians, who stood in shock. A guard tried to reach forward, in anger, to subdue the girl but she turned just in time to give him a knock in the face again, and reach down to grab one of the small pistols that he carried on a belt. The other guard grabbed his own pistol and began to point it at the girl but she proved that she was not bluffing. She pulled the trigger and shot the man in both knees, then turned and shot the rest of them in the same way. They all collapsed onto the floor of the elevator as the doors opened. The girl turned around and carefully looked both ways into the brightly lit corridors. It was empty.

Turning back into the elevator, the girl held the doors open with one foot as she hit all thirty buttons and turned to the group, who were all holding their legs in pain. She picked up the rifles and extra small weapons that she could possible carry and smile and waved as the doors closed on the group. Knowing that it wouldn't be safe to take the main passageways, the girl forced open the elevator doors with her steel arm and looked up, seeing the elevator stop at the next floor, and then continue up. She looked down and saw that there were only three stories below her and she, without hesitating, took the jump. She clung, tightly, to the weapons that she had scavenged from the guards. Landing with a loud thud, the long pants that she had been wearing had lifted up from the wind of jumping down, and both of her legs proved to be made of the same metal as her right arm. She had metal feet, which looked like metallic shoes instead of toes, and the legs had built-in knees like a normal leg. The metal ran up to the girl's hips, which were bolted into her body like her arm into it's shoulder socket.

The girl looked around, after landing and saw a metal, vertical pipe and decided to make use of it. She dropped the rifle that she had carried and looked up to make sure that the elevator was still on a path going up. She approached the pipe and looked to her hands. She looked back to the pipe and thrust her arms at it, hitting the wooden board in the middle and beginning to crack it. She hit it several more times, causing it to also scratch her wrists, and draw a large amount of blood, just before breaking the board in half. Doing this also released it's complete hold on her. She rubbed her wrists and picked up the rifle.

Looking around, the girl saw a large, air vent built into the elevator shaft, and punched it open, revealing a long passageway. She climbed in and began crawling through. It didn't take long to get to another vent, where she could see out of, and into a room where there was something she had never seen before.

There at the end of the room, stood a giant... Well the only thing to call it was "Robot". It was covered in hoses, which seemed to be pumping out liquid nitrogen, which seemed to keep the beast in cryostasis. The thing towered above anything else in the room, it's shining metal gleaming from the lights above it. The technicians only reached the things ankles as they strode in and out of the room, each with clipboards.

As the girl watched in a daze as the "robot", an alarm suddenly sounded. Red lights flashed all over the place and the technicians, once calmly doing their jobs, now quickly scattering out of the room.

_"Can't stop now!"_ the girl thought as she continued through the vents.

She made it to the end of the vent, which instead of turning another horizontal direction, had gone to a vertical climb. There were no bars to pull herself up on, so the girl threw the rifle over her shoulder and jumped up into the vent, carefully trying to keep silent. She held both arms and legs against the walls of the vent, slowly lifting each one up one by one to climb further and further up. The vent went up, easily, a good twenty stories. Every now and then the girl would come upon another vent enclosure but saw nothing but armed guards and decided against trying to break out from there. She finally reached the top of the vent and saw that it had turned into another horizontal direction, leading the opposite direction from where she had originally entered it. She jumped into this section of the vent, being careful not to make a mistake and end up falling the twenty stories that she had just spent a lot of time crawling through.

The vent led to several other turns and curves, which led her to a room where she saw the wheels of a rolling chair move straight in front of her just before she would have punched it out. She saw a desk, and the feet of a woman who rolled from one small area of filing cabinets, to back to the desk, where she was apparently talking on a phone.

"I haven't seen anything yet, sir. But I'll be sure and report anything unusual... Yes sir... Of course sir!" And she hung up the phone, turning to a computer where she began typing. The room was unusually lit. It was a more natural light, other than the ones she had always used to see. She looked to the edge of the metal grating and saw it.

_"D-Doors! Doors leading the way out of here! To the outside! It's just like Five had described it to me just before..."_ the girl thought before her mind shifted gears for a moment and she became saddened.

She had almost forgotten what she was doing before she heard several footsteps crowd into the room.

"Any sign?!" one of them stopped to ask the woman at the front desk.

"No, nothing. This girl didn't manage to leave the confines the lab last time, I doubt that she would be able to get this far," the woman said in an annoyed tone as some of the soldiers continued.

"This girl was designed to learn from her mistakes, not to mention be a one-woman battling machine. She may make it past us this time..." the man said as he walked out of the room, following the other guards.

_"How will I make it past here without being caught?! If I give up now, I'll either be killed, or be given more guards to look after me so that I'll never be able to make it out of here! It's all or nothing!" _the girl thought to herself as she punched through the grating, startling the secretary.

The girl jumped out of the grating, quickly pointing the rifle at the woman sitting in the chair. She said nothing, but motioned for the woman to keep her hands in the air, so she could see what she was doing. The girl backed up to the door while keeping the gun pointed at the scared woman and she got to the door, and pushed it open. Just before taking off quickly, the girl acted as though she were about to pull the trigger of the gun and the secretary tightly shut her eyes. The girl, then turned and ran. She ran as fast as her metal legs would allow her to, which was actually at about the speed of a cheetah. The girl stopped as she saw that there were a large amount of cars in a large parking lot. She walked towards a fenced in corner, and as she rounded it, her body ran into someone else. She quickly pointed her rifle at the person she had run into but looked again.

"Wait! Number Seven, It's me! Lillian! I'll get you out of here but you have to trust me!" the woman wailed.

The girl didn't speak, she just kept holding the gun to the other woman before she heard the sounds of men running out of the doors that she had just run out of. Her sensitive hearing could pick up traces of footsteps. It would be a moment before they got to where she was but she was already beginning to worry.

The other woman looked around the corner and saw the soldiers running towards the fence and said, "Come on! We don't have much time!"

Before the girl could shoot the rifle, Lillian had grabbed her by the left arm and pulled her into the parking lot, where they came to a small, blue car. Lillian, then, opened the truck of her car and pulled the girl to it, shoving her in.

"Don't make any noise!" she ordered as she closed the trunk lid and jumped into the drivers' side of the car and started it up, making her way out of the parking lot.

The girl could feel the car coming to a full stop, and then heard the sound of a man's voice.

"Just leaving, James. I'm taking off early for my nephew's big soccer game. You know how important those things are to kids," Lillian smiled up at the security guard with a hopeful, trusting smile.

The security guard stepped slowly out of his shack, giving Lillian a frown, "There's a security alert. I was told not to let anyone leave without a full check of their vehicle..."

"Come on, you know me! I practically _live_ here! If I'm late to this thing my sister will never forgive me..." she frowned as well, looking to her watch as though she were checking to make sure that she was still on time to the "soccer game".

"Sorry ma'am, orders. I've got to check your entire car before letting you leave."

He began to make a full round of the small car. Looking into the passenger seat, checking the wheel wells, he even bent down to the ground to check all of the mechanics under the car. Standing back up, he looked into the cramped back seat, where he saw a case of water and a cooler.

Lillian saw how he was staring at the cooler and said, "I assure you that there was no possible way I could fit a full grown girl in _there_," she said sarcastically.

The guard looked at her with a glare before moving on, Lillian's heart began to jump up into her throat as he headed towards the back of the car.

The guard tapped on the trunk harshly, insisting that she open it.

Lillian poked her head out of the driver's side window and said, "The latch is stuck!" she lied.

He walked around to the driver's side window and said, "Then hand me the key. I can't let you leave without checking your trunk."

The woman sighed as she turned the car off and pulled the keys out of the ignition, handing them over to the guard, "Come on, James. How long have we both worked here? This is a little rediculous isn't it?" she said sweetly.

"You know the protocol. If I don't check every car, I could lose my job. The longer you argue, the longer it's going to take for you to make it out of here," he grouched as he took the keys from her and went back to the rear of the vehicle.

The girl began to sweat as she heard a key being used in the lock of the trunk. She pulled out a small pistol and pointed it out of the trunk as it opened. The lid slowly lifed and the man that she had heard stared at her with wide eyes, unmoving. Before he could do anything, the girl got a shot off a round into his shoulder, causing him to hit the ground and roll around in pain.

Lillian jumped out of the car and saw the man rolling on the ground and bent down to him, grabbing the keys from the dirt.

"I tried to stop you..." she said with a hint of remorse as she turned and closed the trunk lid.

She ran around to the driver's side and hopped back in, jamming the key back into the ignition and starting the engine back up. She slammed the door shut and rushed through the gate, breaking the retractable arm off as she left the facility in a cloud of dust.

--

It had been several hours since the girl had felt the car come to a stop. Surely, it was getting close to nightfall by now. She was beginning to get agitated when she finally felt the car come to a full stop, and she heard the engine turn off. A sound of a car door opening and closing was heard, and then the key to the lock in the trunk shifted around. She put her hand on one of the pistols before she saw the face of Lillian, who, pushed the gun away from her face.

"I'll let you out of here now, but you have to put these on, and you have to leave all of the guns in the trunk..." she said quietly as she threw a pair of black, vinyl gloves at the girl, as well as a long, black overcoat.

The girl only looked to the woman at first, but decided that if she could get out of the trunk, she could make a run for it from there. She took off all of her weapons and threw on the getup that the woman had given her. As soon as this was done, the girl slowly climbed out of the trunk and saw that they were at some sort of park. She saw other people around them, but they seemed so oddly dressed to her. She had only ever worn a white tank top and black sweat pants, so anything new and unusual seemed odd to her.

"Come on, "Lillian pointed to a picnic table, "I've got something for you..."

The girl suspiciously followed Lillian until they came to the table, where the girl just stood and watched the woman unpack a box of... of...

_"Food!"_ the girl thought, her stomach growling and her mouth watering.

Without giving it a second thought, she sat down and started gobbling down the food, and gulping down the bottles of water which Lillian had also unpacked. They were the same disgusting packets of dried foods that she had always been fed, but she was too hungry to care. Her stomach grumbled wildly as it gladly accepted the nourishment.

"I thought you'd like this! Just pace yourself though. You don't want to get a belly ache," The woman said cheerfully as she watched the girl down all of the food.

Before the girl finished, Lillians' face softened into a solemn expression and she said, "Listen, I know that this will be a lot to take in right now, but I need to discuss something very important with you..."

The girl's eyes shifted up and away from the food that she was devouring and she slowed down, giving Lillian the _"Go on, I'm listening,"_ look.


	2. Free

Hey guys, thank you for the encouraging reviews! If you're wondering, yes I made a few mistakes by leaving some parts out of the first chapter, but if you go back, you'll find them amended. Here's the second chapter update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, however Project Seven is my own little creation so no stealy stealy!

--

"I can't stay here, and you can't go back there... You're in a lot of danger, and I don't think I really need to remind you of that. It's bad enough that you're even outside of the lab, let alone have the public lay their eyes on you... I'm going to give you what you'll need to live off of for a few days, but you'll have to find a life of your own after that... You're going to be one of the most hunted people in the country right now..." she wasn't exactly sure if she should just leave the girl by herself and hope for the best, like leaving a bag of kittens on the side of the road and hope they find a good home.

The girl had stopped eating completely and looked up at Lillian with a questioning face.

Lillian pulled out a small, black, plastic bag and handed it to the girl. She almost didn't accept it but she, reluctantly, took the small bag.

"It's about a thousand dollars. You're used to going without food for long periods of time so you're going to have the stretch every dollar as far as you can. After that, you'll have to find a way to either make some money or... Well do what you have to do to survive, but I have to ask you not to hurt anyone unless you're in danger... Just as long as you understand how important that is, then I'll feel a little better knowing that I've done the right thing..." Lillian's voice grew more and more quiet, but she knew no matter how quiet she was, that the girl would be able to hear her.

There was a brief moment of silence before the girl finally said the first thing in six years.

"Why..." the first word was raspy, but the girl managed to squeak it out.

Lillian looked up at the girl, and noticed that she had completely stopped eating and was focusing her sky-blue eyes right into hers.

"W-What? What did you just say?" she asked, feeling enthralled that the girl had spoken to her.

"Why do you want to help me?... You... You're one of them..." the girl asked.

"The people of this country need to know what their government has done to children like you... It's time things started to unfold... And it needs to start with you..." Lillian replied quietly again.

Before she could explain any further, the sound of a car running slowly along the road near the two women made itself known, and Lillian looked behind her to see that it was a police car. Lillian made no haste in explaining her next task.

"Listen, I know that you've probably grown very tired of being poked and prodded at, but I need to do something before I leave you..." Lillian reached in her pocket and pulled out a small pocket knife.

The girl watched the woman unfold a small, sharp knife and she sat farther back, now aware that something bad was going to happen.

"No, please, don't be scared. Listen, you've got a tracking bug in under the skin in the back of your left hand, and in order for them not to find you, I need to get it out. If I don't, you'll be found in the next few minutes and we'll _both_ be in big trouble. It'll be a small cut, I promise," Lillian pleaded.

_"Well she got me out of that place... If it's to keep me from going back..." _the girl thought as she outstretched her left hand.

Lillian took the girl's hand and between the thumb and index finger, made a small cut. The girl jumped a little at the pain, but she had felt much worse than this, so she stayed as still as possible. In just a few seconds, a small, blue chip emerged from the girl's hand and landed on the table. The girl brought her hand back and rubbed at the small cut.

"There, that should do it... Consider yourself free!" Lillian said as she folded the knife up again and put it back in her pocket.

"Okay, that's all I have for you I'm afraid. I'm going to leave this in a creek nearby so they'll lose track of you. But you have to get away from here right now, as well as myself... I'm surprised there's no one here already!" Lillian gathered the empty box, and gathered her car keys.

Just before Lillian left, she looked back to the girl with saddened eyes and said, "Get yourself away from here as fast as you can, but don't let anyone see you running, you're not exactly something that the people are used to seeing... Good luck... Seven..." and she turned back again and hopped into her car. In seconds, she was gone.

The girl stood and watched as several police cars began making their way into the park.

_"...She was right... They were here faster than I thought they would be... No more time to waste! I have to leave here now!"_ and she was off.

--

It didn't take long for the girl to find shelter under an overpass. It was a secluded and dark place. It would have to do for now. She looked up at the sky and saw the bright orange colors as the sun was setting. She was dazzled by all of the things that the world outside of her prison had to offer. It was so relaxing, that the girl drifted off into a deep slumber.

BOOM

A loud noise jostled the girl from sleep. Her mind raced as she quickly as she could jump to her feet. It only took a few seconds before a helicopter and several police vehicles blew by her.

_"They found me! Damn! How the hell did they find me?!"  
_  
The girl was about to make a run for it, when she noticed that everything had blown right past her. She was, of course, hidden. But she still wondered why it was that she was completely ignored, not that she was complaining. She watched as the vehicles drove to the other side of another overpass. The helicopter flew underneath it several times as well. The girl, soon, heard the sound of a car, racing to the overpass from the other side. It passed the police vehicles and...

The girls' eyes widened at what she saw next. The helicopter passed underneath the underpass and she saw two figures, seemingly falling to their doom. But before they did, the speeding car... just seemed to _transform_ out of the figure of a car, and into the figure of...

"A robot?!" the girl watched as the giant robot managed to grab the two figures just as the helicopter passed through. It landed and skidded crossed the cement before coming to a stop, carefully placing the two figures down on the ground.

"Humans? The robot risked itself for humans?!" The girl's confusion turned into curiosity as she jumped from her spot and quickly ran to the other overpass.

While running the girl thought, "I wonder if it's the same as the one that I saw back in the lab?! Was that one donating itself for human experimentations?"

She poked her head down into the underneath, and saw many police vehicles surrounding the yellow robot. She saw the human vehicles attach steel lines to the robot as it struggled to get free.

"Why doesn't it just destroy them? It could do it so easily!" The girl thought to herself.

Just as she questioned this, she saw the two humans run for the robot.

"NO! GET OFF OF HIM!" One of the humans yelled.

The girl couldn't understand why it was that these humans and the robot were defending each other, but she didn't like how this was looking so she jumped from her spot and ran halfway under the overpass.

One of the agents from the group of police noticed the girl and walked forward a little, in disbelief.

"YOU!" he yelled in anger, pointing a finger.

The girl just stood there as her temper began to flare. She knew this man... He had, several times, watched over her as they administered "tests". The girl immediately knew that the robot and the two humans defending it were in trouble, and they needed help. She wasn't sure why, but she decided that she was going to help these strangers.

The girl clapped her hands together and touched the ground. Everyone had stopped what they were doing in this group as they felt earth shake beneath them.

"What is this?!" Several of the agents asked, trying to balance themselves.

A giant wall of concrete appeared between the robot and the humans, with the exception of the two humans that the robot had tried so hard to save. The wall rose to meet the bottom of the overpass and stopped. The robot and the two humans were in a daze. The barrier had managed to cut the steel lines that were attached to the robot's limbs.

"W-What just happened?" One of the humans spoke up.

"Run!" The girl shouted to them.

The three turned to her, unsure of what had just happened, and unsure of what to do next.

"Didn't you hear me?! Get out of here!" She yelled again, as the robot was shaken from it's daze, and picked up the two humans near it, running towards the girl.

The robot approached the girl and stopped. The two humans' faces were now clear to the girl. One seemed to be a boy, and the other a girl. The three stared down at her as the robot extended a hand down to her, apparently motioning for her to climb aboard.

The girl backed up and realized that she had gone against the advice of the woman who had broken her from her own hell. She then turned and began to run from them.

_"What have I done?!"_ she thought as she turned to see that the robot was walking towards her a little more, with it's hand still outstretched to her.

Thinking that her fast legs were going to be able to carry her away from all of this, she looked back ahead of her just before running into something very hard, hitting her head against it, whatever it was. The girl fell to the ground, only hearing the noises around her grow less and less audible.

"Who is she?" she heard a voice.

"I'm not sure, but we don't have time to waste, we must-" and that was the last thing she heard before drifting into unconsciousness.

--

Her sharp, sensitive nose was first to take in the scents all around her. She could feel soft material beneath her. Her eyes slowly opened, the blurry vision slowly beginning to take shapes and forms of her surroundings. She saw, what looked to be a steering wheel. The soft material she was laying on took the shape of plush seats. Slowly starting to sit up, but not without feeling a strong pain overtake her head. She put her left hand on her head, rubbing her temples, trying to rub the pain away. Without any luck, the girl sat up the rest of the way, looking out of the windows from over the steering wheel.

She saw, what looked to be, a fire, and several smaller vehicles surrounding it. There were two sports cars, the yellow one she recognized as the one that she had seen earlier, then a dark grayish one that had a different body style to it. As well as there were two SUV type vehicles, one with lights over the top like an emergency type of vehicle, and the other some sort of pickup truck. Looking back at the yellow sports car, the girl saw the two humans from earlier asleep inside.

Looking out of the side window of the driver's seat of the much larger thing that she was sitting in. Looking over the nose of the thing she was inside, she saw that it was a large, blue semi truck with flame decals. She looked below the window and saw the handle to the door and slowly took hold of it, gently pulling on it. The door slowly opened, as she didn't want to alarm anything around her and give herself away. She jumped from the driver's side and onto the ground, not bothering to re-close the door. She looked around and noticed that they were no longer in a large city, they were in an open desert. She noticed that the sun was just barely beginning to rise, and she could start to see the colors in the sky.

She hadn't realized it before, but she was actually outside of her prison. Breathing the air of the outside was just as great as it had been described to her. She could smell all different kinds of scents around her. One of them was the smell of the dying fire. It's embers were blowing away in the little amount of wind that the girl could feel against her cheek. She had never thought about how free she was now...

_"Free..."_ she remembered Lillian telling her that word. Up until now it was just a word that she had read once in one of her tutoring books. A word that she had remembered she hated, because she was something that she would never be able to grasp... Just then, she realized that she wanted to know if the woman had managed to escape the clutches of the police...

--

The sun had begun to rise, and in the same park that the girl had been left by Lillian, there were several black SUV's surrounding the area. Men in black suits, and others in white lab coats. Two of the men in lab coats approached one man in a black suit. One of them held a small, blue chip up to the man, handing it to him.

"This is all that we found, sir. She's not here... She must have found the tracking chip and tore it out of herself..." one of them spoke.

The man in the black suit took the chip from the other, and held it up to see the dried blood leftover on it.

"There's only one way to find her now... Call back to base... Tell them... To release Number Eight..." he ordered as he turned and got into an SUV and screeched away from the rest of them.


	3. Project Seven, meet the Autobots

REVISED

Hey all! Thank you so much for your encouragement! I've decided to make one more update for the weekend! I, most likely, won't update every day like I have these past three updates, but do not despair! I'll update regularly just to keep you on your toes )

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, blah blah blah, I DO own Project Seven blah blah blah, you guys get the point by now right?

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_"Okay, enough checking out the scenery, it's time to go!"_ the girl thought to herself as she began to creep away.

"Where are you going, child?" the voice came from behind.

The girl turned to see nothing but the large Truck that she had just left. Looking around, she began to back up.

_"Where did that come from?!"_ she asked herself as she backed up into the smaller, grayish sport scar, which then rumbled it's engine. She fell to the ground and scrambled away from the vehicle

This seemed to cause a chain reaction, the other vehicles engines revving and roaring. The humans within the confines of the yellow sports car also began to stir as she could see them open their eyes and look around to see what was going on. She turned and crawled away before standing up on her feet and taking a few sprinted leaps away. She turned back around and looked to see that the two humans had exited the Camaro's cabin and were running towards her. She growled and stood in a defensive position, threatening the younger humans enough that they stopped in their tracks.

"Whoa, easy! No one here is going to hurt you!" The male human shouted.

The cars all then seemed to change. Gears were grinding, the sound of metal scraping against metal caused her to flinch. The parts ground against each other and interchanged on each one of the... things...

"Please, do not be frightened," the largest robot that had turned from the truck that she had been sleeping in walked towards her as well.

The girl was about to clench her teeth and stand firm in battle mode when she remembered what Lillian had asked her to do.

_"...I have to ask you not to hurt anyone unless you're in danger... Just as long as you understand how important that is, then I'll feel a little better knowing that I've done the right thing..."_ she remembered as her thoughts jumped from that to the human boy telling her that no one was going to harm her.

_"I can't fight them if their intentions aren't to harm me..."_ the girl thought, relaxing her body a little.

The girl looked down at her right arm and saw that the metal appendage was exposed, the gloves and the overcoat had been removed. This alarmed her a little as she looked over her entire body, making sure there were no damages.

"Here," the larger robot handed the clothing that she had noticed were missing, and she stepped forward towards the hand, yanking the clothing out of it's grasp. She quickly covered herself, bundling the heavy coat around her.

"We thought that you had been damaged and when we removed those items, that's when we noticed your arm, and legs..." the robot explained.

The other human approached the girl, looking to her with remorse, "Did you get those from... an accident?" the female asked in a soft tone.

The girl looked away coldly. She was told not to harm them, she wasn't told not to have a distrust towards them.

"We know you can talk, we've heard it... So what's your problem?" the human male asked as the robots moved closer to her.

"What do you want from me?" the girl asked in a low tone.

"Well, for starters, we'd like to know what the heck it was that you did to help us last night!" the male went on.

The girl looked to all of the robots around her and said, "Why should I tell any of you?!"

"You've shown great abilities, and you saved the other two children, as well as one of our own. We wanted to know how it was that you were able to do those things, but we didn't have much time to speak during the problems that we had encountered," the larger robot spoke again.

"So... Who are all of you?" The girl asked.

The larger robot began to point to the others and said, "We are the Autobots. At the other end, there, is Jazz," the one that had transformed from the grayish sports car nodded, "Bumblebee," the yellow robot gave a cheerful wave, "Ironhide," the metallic robot with canons attached to his arms and back nodded, "Ratchet," another grayish robot gave a nod, "And I am Optimus Prime."

The humans spoke up and said, "I'm Sam, and this is Mikaela."

Mikaela asked, "What's your name?"

This made the girl divert her eyes away from them for a moment as she said, "I... don't really have a name..."

The others looked to each other, exchanging glances.

Sam turned to Ratchet and asked, "I thought you said that she didn't have any injuries?"

Ratchet shook his head and replied, "I didn't miss anything. The girl is uninjured as far as my sensors can tell."

"No... I remember what I am, and my life... I just don't have the kind of name that you have..." The girl responded.

"_What_ you are? The _kind_ of name?" Mikaela asked.

"Yeah... I was given a number assigned to the order that I was created... I was number Seven. That's all I was ever called," the girl explained.

"The order that you were created? You mean in your family, you were the seventh kid?" Sam asked.

"...Family?" the girl had never thought of the others that she had been created along with as a "family". They had only ever been referred to as "projects"... Well, perhaps she thought of one of her kind as close enough to be "family"...

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Sam asked.

"I just... don't really have a family..." the girl responded.

"Well what else would you have? Didn't you, at least, have parents?" Mikaela wondered what was going through the girl's mind.

"I never had parents, just people that ran "tests" on me, and had me complete battle simulations..." the girl looked to the ground.

"Tests? Battle simulations? What kind of people did you live with?!" Sam asked.

"I guess the best way to describe my place in this world is to say it was, by no means, accidental. Twenty years ago, I was born as an experiment to discover the best one-person army... I was given an number by the order I was created because there were six other, failing, experiments that were to be replaced as soon as I had completed all of the training exercises to prove my worth for battle..." The girl responded.

There was a long pause of silence until Optimus spoke again, "Who was it that created you?"

"There are many sections of the government that are kept undisclosed to the public... Section eleven and Section Seven were partners in the creation of the project that I have been designed under..."

"Your arm and legs are very similar to our own... Do you say that your own kind did this work to you?" Ratchet asked.

"I suppose so... I mean, I've never seen anything like any of you before..." the girl replied looking up into the faces of the Autobots.

"Are you... Are you all created under another project?" she asked, somewhat curious herself.

"Not at all. We've come here from the planet Cybertron, looking for the source to save our own planet. We've only just arrived to this planet as of a few days ago. We were trying to find the map that would lead us to the source but..." Optimus explained before he seemed to lose his train of thought.

"But what?" the girl asked.

"The map that we had come here for... was accidentally destroyed during the time that we tried to run from the humans after running into you..." he finished.

"I'm sorry to hear that..." the girl said as she noticed all of the robots seemed to looked distressed over the idea of losing their "map".

"So, Seven was it? Where are you from?" Sam asked, trying to change the subject.

"I was never supposed to be told where I was exactly. That way if I had been captured by an enemy they wouldn't have a way of getting that information out of me... I don't even know where the hell I am right now..." the girl replied.

"We are located about fifteen miles east of a city called "Los Angelas". That's where we had met you," Optimus replied.

"So..." Mikaela started, "So... how exactly did you get the metal arm and legs anyway? It wasn't an accident... Was it?"

"...It was by no means an accident... Not long after I was created, my right arm and legs were amputated, and later replaced with these mechanisms," The girl's temper began to rise. She didn't want to have to remember any of it.

"How was it that you managed to make it to Los Angeles?" Sam asked.

"I was at the end of one of their "experiments" and I lost my temper... They were trying to find out how long a creation of theirs could go without nourishment, so they would know how long to leave me with the enemy if it came to it... I was approaching my twenty-third day when I was told that if I didn't speak to them by then, I would not ever be given anything for nourishment and would be marked as a failed project when I would die... The idea of that didn't sit well with me, of course, so I managed to escape... Someone who wanted to give me a chance... She helped me escape after I got most of the way out, and brought me close to where you had found me... Not long after she left, I guess that's when I ran into all of you... literally..." the girl explained, rubbing the goose egg on her noggin.

Optimus looked to Sam and Mikaela and asked, "Is this what humans do to one another?"

"I've... I've never heard of anything like this before..." Sam replied.

"I'm not surprised that you haven't... Like I said, it's a major cover-up by the government," the girl replied as she turned her back solemnly to the group, looking into the rising of the sun, "I doubt that even the president of this country even knows about me or the others..."

"Are there... Any others left alive besides you?" Mikaela asked, feeling a wave of sadness pass over her.

Seven looked to them from the corner of an eye, "No... No one else survived..."


	4. Alchemy, powers revealed

REVISED

Hey guys! I got really far ahead in my writings on this story, so here's another chapter update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own transformers, I DO own Project Seven

To answer a question that may have come up, I am using this story and following the movie version, so it's set during that time, I just took a different ending ;D

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Back at the base where, officially named, Seven had escaped, many agents and guards gathered around a cell that was even more secluded than the rest of the projects and experiments. The cell was made of several layers of bullet-proof glass and titanium. The door was thick steel, with only one, small hole to look into.

In front of the door, the guards and agents all gathered.

"Are you sure that this should be done? This project is the most unstable one yet!" A lab technician held the key to the door anxiously. The man was sweating, and his hands were shaking. It was obvious that he had experience trying to deal with this other project. "This woman cannot be trusted! She's the most deeply disturbed project yet and-"

"You have your orders... This "project" is the only way to find Seven..." An agent ordered.

"You don't understand! We haven't found a way to stabilize this one! She won't follow orders, and she's a danger to anyone near her! We were planning on destroying her but-"

"I've heard enough! The orders have been made, and we have to follow them! I assure you, that we will have every man needed to keep this out of the public eye, but this is our only shot to capture Seven! Now do as you're told before I do it _for_ you!" The agent interrupted the technician and made his demands.

"I... uh... Yes sir..." The technician turned slowly to the cell and carefully input a code into a numeral pad next to the door.

The code was accepted, and a key slot revealed itself in the door. The tech was so nervous putting the key in the door that his hand shivered and he missed the slot the first and second attempt. Finally getting the key in the door, he slowly turned it, and the locking mechanisms gave a loud "CLANG" as they had been undone. The technician opened the door and the guards and agents raised their weapons towards the open pathway. Some of the guards entered the room just before an agent entered and noticed the woman who they had come to see. She had been sitting in a corner with her knees against her chest. She was wearing a straight jacket and had her head lowered.

"Number Eight I presume?" The agent asked.

There was no answer from the girl, her messy brunette hair covering her face.

"Number Eight, you will answer, or we will take action against this -"

"I heard you..." a low growl rumbled from the woman.

The agent was practically shaking in his boots, as they say. Just the idea of being in the same room with this creature was frightening. He could actually _feel_ a haze of the murderous cloud that hung over the woman.

"We... We require your assistance," the officers voice was shaky, at best.

A low hum of the girl's voice practically shook the man's spine as she spoke, "I have already explained my position to your superiors... How many incidents must there be before the rest of you listen to me?"

"My superiors are the ones that believe this is a task you may take on..." he replied.

"I'll do nothing to aid you. Take that back to them and leave me alone..." the girl did not make a single movement.

"Allow me to explain what we're going to be asking of you," the man insisted on continuing, even though his insticts were warning him otherwise, "One of our projects has escaped."

A small hitch in the girl's body movement told the officer that this had brought her to full attention.

"...Which one?" she asked.

"Erm.." the officer had been briefed on project Eight's past, and felt a bit uncomfortable at the idea of releasing too much information to her.

"I asked you a question..." Eight became enraged.

The officer sighed and replied, "It was Project Seven... She escaped, we think, with the aid of one of our scientists. We have no proof of it at the moment, but our first priority is to remove Seven from the public. And we believe the only way to do that is to have someone with even more training and experience than her to track her down."

"...So she escaped? She's finally free, and I'm still here?" Eight gritted her teeth, as well as becoming more tense.

"Does this mean we have an agreement?" the officer asked.

"What makes you think that I'll turn in one of my own?" the woman asked, keeping her head held low.

"We understand that the project identity that you are under has been deemed unstable, unreliable, and has been condemned. If you help us, we will reverse this, and maybe meet to some of your demands as well..." The agent explained.

The woman slowly lifted her head, and the guards reacted by raising their weapons to her and putting their fingers on the triggers of the guns, ready for anything.

Opening her eyes, the agent saw that her looks were nearly the same as Seven, except for the differences of the bright, yellow, cat-like eyes.

"Well then... We might have a deal after all..." the woman said in her low rumble.

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"So how the hell did you do that anyway?" Sam asked, intensely curious about what the girl had done to save them.

"Do what?" Seven was lost.

"You..." Sam looked to Bumblebee and Mikaela for help with the words, "You did that thing... And a huge wall just _appeared_ out of nowhere... How did you do that?"

"Oh that... Well one of the training exercises that was taught to, only me, was Alchemy. I just used it to raise the concrete to separate you guys from those agents," Seven explained.

"Alchemy?" Mikaela asked.

"You're kidding? Alchemy... Like the "turn lead into gold" Alchemy?" Sam was stunned.

Seven scoffed and said, "You might not believe how untrue that is, actually."

"Still! Alchemy! I thought that it was just a myth!" Sam was nearly bursting out of his skin he had gotten so excited.

"It's no myth, as you may have noticed. It's just a greatly unappreciated science," Seven added.

"Alchemy..." Optimus looked to the other Autobots and then back to Seven, "We did not find this on our search of the "World Wide Web". What is it?"

"It's a science. Being able to turn one object into another using chemical properties," Seven replied.

The Autobots looked to one another, assumingly transmitting some sort of frequency to each other.

"I'm afraid we still don't understand..." Optimus looked back to Seven.

The girl, then, took her overcoat and gloves off to reveal her robotic arm. She placed her left hand over it and, in one swift movement, ran her hand down her arm, revealing that her arm was now, a long, double-edged blade.

"Amazing! You can transform just as we can!" Ratchet announced.

"No, not transform, "Seven replied holding her bladed arm up so that the early morning sunlight could gleam off of it, "Transmuted. To use the chemical properties of an object and cause a reaction to change it into another."

Sam leaned over to Mikaela and whispered, "Remind me never to piss her off..." the girl nodded in reply as she and Sam stared at the blade, which was once the girl's arm.

Seven transmuted the blade back into her arm, and threw back on her overcoat and gloves. As soon as she did this, she heard an awful growl, only to look at Sam and Mikaela and saw their faces turn red.

"You wouldn't happen to be able to turn dirt into food would you?" Mikaela asked.

"Uhh, no," Seven shrugged, "It's kind of a rule of Alchemy. Like not being able to turn lead into gold..." she explained her stomach beginning to growl as well.

"Great... We've lost contact with everyone from home... The feds have our families... And we're in the middle of the desert with no way to buy any food..." Sam yelled in frustration as he sat in the dry dirt.

"We can't go back to Los Angelas, Sam... They've probably got a lot of people looking for us..." Mikaela reasoned with the boy.

Seven rolled her eyes. Her instincts were telling her that she didn't want to stay long, but she couldn't help but feel like Lillian meant for her to behave, and be helpful to those who had helped her. She sighed, deciding that she should have, at least paid back the debt that was owed for the group rescuing her from the situation of being close to capture. Though she had the feeling that things would have worked out differently for them, had she not intervened.

"Well... I don't have food, but I have this, " Seven said as she pulled the small black plastic bag out of a pants pocket and pulled out the wad of cash.

"Whoa! Where the hell did you get _that_?" Sam asked.

"The woman who took me away from the hell I was in gave this to me... She said something about making sure I stretch my "food" dollar. If you guys are hungry, then I suppose I should help out a little," Seven replied.

"Perhaps you have the means to buy food for yourselves, but it's still too dangerous to go anywhere near a lot of people..." Optimus reminded the humans.

"Well... Maybe _you_ guys might be seen, but I'm sure that no one will know who _I_ am!" Seven replied.

"You are probably being sought after as well, little one. If you're what you say you are, then there's someone looking for you for sure," Optimus tried to reason.

"Maybe government agents know me, but I'm sure they haven't released any information about me. They wouldn't want anyone in the public to know anything about me. If I'm in an area where there are a lot of other humans, I'll probably be hidden better that way," Seven replied.

"She might have a point, Optimus, "Sam agreed, "If the government doesn't want anyone to know anything, they'll cover things up pretty well."

"Even so, I would rather know that you don't go alone," Optimus replied.

"I can take care of myself! I'm trained for recon missions, this shouldn't be any different," Seven said as she stood from where she had sat down.

"I'll take her, Prime, " Ironhide volunteered.

"I said I can take care of myself!" Seven wasn't sure why they insisted on keeping around her.

"Go with her, Ironhide," Optimus and the others ignored the girls' demands.

"...Fine... But in the mean time, I suggest all of you keep moving around. If the government is after you, then they'll be covering all their bases before too long," Seven suggested.

"Yes, we've thought of that as well, "Optimus agreed.

Ironhide transformed into the muscle pickup truck that he had been earlier and opened the driver's side door for Seven. She, reluctantly jumped in and they were off.

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And just to add a little something to the end of each chapter, here's a Chapter Teaser for next time!

The girl walked to a sidestreet where Ironhide was parked. She walked over to him and the driver's side door opened, Seven quickly got in and slammed the door.

"Where's the fuel?" he asked.

"You wouldn't happen to know what it is that they wanted to eat do you?" Seven asked in a low growl.

"You're human aren't you? Don't you know what they would like?" he asked, unsure why the girl was having so much trouble figuring out what to get. Fuel was fuel wasn't it?!

"If you remember correctly, I was locked up my entire life. I've never eaten any of these kinds of foods before!" she said angrily.

"Well... I suppose I could use my long range communications and ask.. Hang on a second..." Ironhide replied, making a lot of "whirring" noises in his motor.

Waiting for the information to come back, Seven noticed something strange. She saw, what appeared to be, several men in black suits walking up the sidewalk from behind her, seemingly not paying any attention to her.

"Whoa!" Seven said as she jumped down below the view of the windows.

The men in the suits walked by and Ironhide had just finished his conversation when he noticed what the girl was doing.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Shh!" the girl motioned for him to stay quiet as she lifted her head up to see the men continue on their journey past them.

"T-They're here... They're looking for me... Damn!" Seven pointed out.


	5. Interrogation

**REVISED**

Hey guys! Here's my newest post! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, I DO own Project Seven. However, I'd like to note that any trademarked name used in these next couple of chapters are also NOT owned by myself.

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A few minutes into the ride back towards the city, Ironhide decided to ask something that he was curious about.

"So this "Alchemy" thing..." he started.

"Hmm?" Seven looked towards the radio where the voice was coming from, "Yeah? What about it?"

"Could you make more weapons with something like that?" Ironhide finished his question.

"Well, yeah. I suppose if I had the right materials I could build a very sophisticated weapon of mass destruction... But why would I want to do that?" Seven asked.

"Do you think that you could, maybe, transform -"

"Transmute..." Seven corrected.

"Right, right. _Transmute,_ already powerful weapons into even more powerful ones?" he asked.

"Uh... Like I said, I'd need the right materials to transmute something. I can't make anything worth more than it already is without destroying it first. I need an equal amount of one matter, to turn it into an equal amount of another matter. I can't break the laws of Alchemy," Seven replied, crossing her arms.

"I see... So if you had the _"materials"_ , you could make a weapon even better?!" Ironhide wasn't trying very hard to cover up his real question.

Seven gave a half smile and said, "This _weapon_ that you speak of... It wouldn't have anything to do with you guys would it?"

"...Maybe..." he answered.

"Okay, well, if I had the right materials, I suppose I could put something together," she replied.

Ironhide's engine roared with excitement as they sped off even faster towards the great city.

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It was the middle of the day, and Lillian was in for questioning at the base. Walking with a guard into the same room where Seven had been the day before, she sat in the cold, hard chair in front of the same people, as well as a few new faces. She felt a twinge of guilt in her stomach as she sat in the chair. She was, now, in the same position as the younger woman had been in for so many years. The chair felt unrelentingly cold and sterile. It was a chair that you wouldn't have wanted to sit in for long because of the sore back you would receive from it. The panel of questioning technicians felt just as cold and sterile.

"Lillian Andrews?" One of the new faces asked, looking down at a piece of paper in front of him.

"Y-Yes. That's me..." she replied quietly.

"As you know, we have some questions concerning your involvement with the escape of project Seven yesterday. Do you think that you could answer a few for us?" the man looked up as he asked this time.

Lillian noticed the others on the council that she had recognized were narrowing their eyes at her in a long, hard glare.

"Well, I'll do my best sir..." she replied.

"Good. Now, you say that you were on your way out of the facility, when the girl stopped you and demanded that you take her away from here?" he asked.

"Y-Yes, that's right... She told me to open the trunk so she could get in and hide..."

"I see... We have the surveillance footage from the guard shack, could you take us through it step by step?" he said as he picked up a remote and pointed it at a television sitting on a table to the side of the room.

"...Yeah..." Lillian replied. She knew what she had done, and knew that they were going to really grill her about it.

The man started the footage and it showed her small car pull up next to the shack, and the guard walking over to her driver's side window. It looked as though the woman was upset when the guard had asked for the key to the trunk. She was constantly looking in her rearview mirror, with her hands on the wheel.

"Can you tell us what just transpired here?" the man asked as he paused the footage.

"I was leaving, and the guard wanted the key to my trunk to inspect. I tried to talk him out of it because I wasn't sure if he would be harmed by the girl once he had opened the lid... But he insisted on looking anyway..." Lillian answered.

"That's interesting..." one of the other council members began, "That's interesting because, the girl was in the trunk, and you had a moment where you could have at least, mouthed, what was going on to the man so he could alert the proper security..."

"I was afraid that if the meeting took too long that the girl would get out and harm both of us anyway..." Lillian answered quickly.

"Miss Andrews... We inspected the trunk of your vehicle... Unless the girl had punched through the metal of the trunk, there was no other way to get out. You see your trunk does not have an emergency latch on the inside. You would have had plenty of time to take the proper security measures, instead you did not do so..." he finished.

"The woman has exemplary skills in battles, and not to mention her skills in Alchemy, along with her false appendages. She had the means, and the tools to do as she would have pleased. There was no security measure that I could have taken to prevent this..." Lillian explained, it was a good thing that she had thought of all of this before agreeing to being questioned.

"Miss Andrews, do you know how many people Seven attempted to murder, yesterday?" the man asked.

"I'd... I'd heard that she shot a few laboratory technicians..." Lillian slumped in her chair.

"More than five of our employees have been shot. Two were in such horrendous shape that even our own medical facility wasn't enough to handle their injuries and had to be airlifted to hospitals in Las Vegas! One of those being the guard, who was only doing his job at his post!"

Lillian let out a disheartening sigh, "Yes, I'm aware of that... However, I don't believe that Seven was trying to kill them."

"And why is that?" one of the female panel members asked.

Lillian glared at the woman indignantly and replied, "She is _the_ highest trained killing machine that this country has ever even conceived of. If she wanted those people dead, then I have a feeling that we would be having a much different conversation. Check her records, if you don't believe me."

"I see... Let's continue with the video then," the first man replied, starting the footage back up.

The guard used the key and opened the lock, only to quickly back up with a shocked expression on his face. As soon as he did this, his body shook with the shock of his shoulder being tore through by a bullet. Lillian, then got out of the car and ran to see the man on the ground, only to close the lid of the trunk and hit the button to release her car out of the gate. She then got in her car and sped off. The man stopped the footage once again.

"Could you explain, why, instead of hitting the emergency call button, you closed the trunk and _still_ did nothing but make a getaway?" the council member asked.

"I was fearing for my own life... I was afraid that if I did not proceed, the girl would surely try and kill me as well..." Lillian answered.

"But you just said that she wasn't trying to kill anyone... Why were you so afraid for your own life?" the woman asked.

"I had a gun pointed at me! What was I supposed to do?!" Lillian snapped back.

"I see... Oliver, bring it here..." A council member ordered.

A lab technician brought over a chart to the man and then took a few steps back to where he had been standing, previously.

"This chart is an inventory list. In the event of such an emergency of one of our projects going wrong, we are to take immediate inventory of all supplies and weapons. Can you tell me why you had signed off on the release of a box of food rations?" the man asked.

"I keep some around my office, just in case it's needed, and I was throwing out the old rations that I had, and put the new box there..." Lillian answered.

"Then why was it that we found the same box of _empty_ rations in the trunk of your vehicle?" the man asked.

"I guess I... forgot and took them with me..." Lillian answered. She had forgotten that she never threw the box into a fire to burn the evidence.

"I see... You also have, in your possession, a switchblade, which was issued to you as they are all issued to our employees in case of emergencies."

"Yes, I have that..."

"Would you, please, hand it to Oliver here. We just need to test it for fingerprints."

"O-Of course..." Lillian reached in her pocket and grabbed the knife, handing it to the lab technician.

"And, I know you put it in your report, but could you tell us how the girl managed to get away from you?" the man asked.

"Y-Yes... She t-told me to drop her off in the middle of a city, so I took her to Sunrise Manor, just north of Las Vegas... I knew that she would be a danger to the people there, but I feared for my own life as well..." Lillian finished.

"I see... Thank you, Miss Andrews. That will be all for now," the council member said as he had a guard escort the woman out of the room.

As soon as she was out of the room, the head board member announced, "Have her followed for right now. Make sure that all calls she makes on her cellular phone and home phone are recorded and tracked to their location. We're going to make sure that she's left nothing out of her story..."

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Seven stared up at the long row of food chains on a street. She looked from one to the other.

_"McDonalds... Subway... Burger King... What are these places?! Why didn't I remember ask them what they wanted to eat?!"_ she could have hit herself for not remembering to ask.

The girl walked to a side street where Ironhide was parked. She walked over to him and the driver's side door opened, Seven quickly got in and slammed the door.

"Where's the fuel?" he asked.

"You wouldn't happen to know what it is that they wanted to eat do you?" Seven asked in a low growl.

"You're human aren't you? Don't you know what they would like?" he asked, unsure why the girl was having so much trouble figuring out what to get. Fuel was fuel wasn't it?!

"If you remember correctly, I was locked up my entire life. I've never eaten any of these kinds of foods before!" she said angrily.

"Well... I suppose I could use my long range communications and ask.. Hold on..." Ironhide replied, making a lot of "whirring" noises in his motor.

Waiting for the information to come back, Seven noticed something strange. She saw, what appeared to be, several men in black suits walking up the sidewalk from behind her, seemingly not paying any attention to her.

"Whoa!" Seven said as she jumped down below the view of the windows.

The men in the suits walked by and Ironhide had just finished his conversation when he noticed what the girl was doing.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Shh!" the girl motioned for him to stay quiet as she lifted her head up to see the men continue on their journey past them.

"T-They're here... They're looking for me... Damn!" Seven pointed out.

"We should leave then... We'll find another place to get fuel," Ironhide said as he locked the doors.

"Wait!" Seven stopped him before he started his engine to leave.

"What is it?" he asked.

"There's a lot of places here to eat... Frankly I doubt that we'll meet up at the same place. Plus, I'm surrounded by hundreds of other people, it should be hard to identify me from everyone here, let alone try and chase me down... I should at least try it, don't you think?" Seven was almost sure of herself.

"I'm under orders to keep you out of danger. If I let you go and you're captured, Prime will have my cranial unit on a silver platter!" Ironhide rumbled.

"So how many other places are you willing to drive to today?" Seven asked him sarcastically.

"..."

"There you go. Besides, there are probably a lot of other places that these guys are at, and we'll be driving around all year if we try to keep away from all of them..." She made a point.

"...Fine... But any funny business from them, you are to come straight back here. Understand?!" he ordered.

"Yeah, sure... I don't see them anymore, maybe they took off... By the way, what did they say that they wanted?" Seven asked.

"Something called a "Big Mac"..." Ironhide wasn't sure if he had said it right, but that's what he had remembered being told.

"...I guess I'll just try anyway..." Seven replied confused as she waited for the doors to unlock so she could leave.

Walking back down to the corner, the girl looked carefully around each direction. She saw nothing but regular people.

_"Civilians... Is this the part of the world that I've been missing?" _The girl thought to herself as she rounded the corner.

She walked down the street, looking into the windows of the places to see if she could find what it was that she was supposed to be on the lookout for. Near the end of the street, about the second to last place, she saw someone walk out with a bag that had "Big Mac" written on the side of it.

_"Aha!"_ she thought, triumphantly as she entered through the door.

As soon as she had entered the place, her senses were overwhelmed with smells and sounds. Her nose wrinkled and her stomach churned at the smell of the fried foods. She hadn't counted on feeling this way about the common human foods but she was on a mission, and that was to fill the stomachs of two other humans. Approaching the counter, she walked up to the cashier.

"Hi, can I help you?" the woman asked sourly?

"Big Mac..." Seven ordered.

The woman looked to Seven with a question mark for a facial expression and asked, "Okay... What kind would you like?"

Seven looked up and saw several different kinds of those things numbered. Some had double patties, some were triple patties, and some with other things...

"Uh... I... What do you recommend?" Seven asked confused.

The cashier rolled her eyes and talked into a speaker, "One number two... Large combo...Regular Coke..."

"Uh... Two of those, actually... thanks..." Seven replied, the cashier again rolled her eyes and corrected herself.

The cashier told her the cost, and Seven paid. She stood and waited for a moment before the cashier said, "You can wait just over there ma'am... There _are_ other people in line..."

"Oh... uh... sorry..." Seven moved down the counter and stood to wait for the food.

Being this close to where the foods were being cooked and fried, it didn't make Seven's stomach churn any less. She looked around for a moment and watched as others bit into the greasy sandwiches.

_"How can they just scarf that down?! It smells unnatural... Certainly people couldn't eat all of this every day?!"_ she thought to herself in disgust.

Just before the bags were filled with the food, Seven felt a hand grab her shoulder. Slowly turning her head, she saw a side view of a man in a black suit, wearing black sunglasses.

"Hello there, Number Seven... There are some people who have been waiting to see you..." he said quietly.

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Chapter Teaser for the Next Chapter!

Lillian was walking out of the base for the day, when she heard someone yell for her.

"Miss Andrews! Miss Andrews!" the voice yelled.

She turned around and saw a council member walked towards her quickly. When he arrived, he seized her by her upper arm and pulled her around the corner of another corridor.

"What is this?!" she shouted angrily.

"I'm going to give you one more chance to tell the truth... Where did you take the girl?!" he asked forcefully.

"I told you, Sunrise Manor!" Lillian stood firm on her lie.

"Oh really? Then why is it that there was a sighting of her in Los Angelas reported just a few minutes ago?!" he asked.

"What?! I-I don't know what you're talking about!"


	6. To Leave

**REVISED**

Hey guys, thank you for your continuing interest in this story! Here's the next update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I still claim no ownership to Transformers, or any other trademarked product or name in this story. However, I own soul custody over Project Seven!!

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Seven turned and saw that the last piece of food was being thrown in the second bag. She grabbed the sack of food, turning to the agent and snaking her metal arm around the man's, she pulled hard and quick breaking his arm. She kept the food bundled against her chest tightly and ran out the door, another man waiting outside. He was ahead of the girl and pointed a gun at her head, Seven growled at him to show that she wasn't afraid of the consequences. He ordered her to stop, but she continued on the warpath, ready for anything that was to happen. Before he could pull the hammer of the gun back into position, Seven had already thought ahead to her next move and clapped her hands together touching the wall of the nearest building. Before the man could shoot the gun, a large, concrete structure built itself around the man, encasing him in completely. It was a large, square structure at least a half a foot thick. She jumped on top of it and smirked, knocking on it with her knuckles. "Sorry to eat and run, but I gotta go!" She jumped off of it and sprinted to the end of the block quickly, shocked gasps, and screams coming from the surrounding civilians. If humans were scared this easily, she though, this was going to be too easy of a task!

She laughed to herself as she looked behind her to the humans. She had just made it around the corner to the side street before she ran into another agent, dropping the bags of food on the ground, and falling onto her stomach. She got up to shake off the fall when she felt the man grab ahold the girl's left arm, pulling it behind her quick and hard, which took it out of the socket.

"AHH!" Seven became upset and turned on the man, crushing his face with a hard punch from her right arm.

The man was knocked unconscious on the hit, falling to the ground with a hard "thud". Seven grasped at her left arm and clenched her teeth for a moment, feeling the shocking pain that shot through her shoulder.

"That's the girl!" A civilian male yelled as a group of humans gathered at the corner of the block, their intent to attempt capturing her. Seven grabbed the bags with her right arm and ran to Ironhide, who was completely oblivious to what was going on.

The driver's side door opened as soon as she approached and she jumped up into the cabin of the Topkick yelling, "GO!"

The Autobot screeched away from where he had parked and drove off. Taking notice of the group of humans who were yelling in fear just a little ways behind them.

"What happened?!" Ironhide asked, noticing the sweat on the girl's face and her rapid heart rate.

"Well... They found... me..." Seven said as she stayed below the level of the windows so as not to be seen.

"How the slag did they find you?!" he asked, screeching around another corner of an intersection, just barely missing being hit by a row of small cars that were making their way through.

"There were more of them than I thought.." she sat up, holding her arm with a pained expression on her face, "No big deal, we just need to get the hell out of here!"

"Well we should meet up with everyone soon, just hold on!" the truck picked up speed.

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Lillian was walking out of the base for the day, when she heard someone yell for her.

"Miss Andrews! Miss Andrews!" the voice yelled.

She turned around and saw a council member walking towards her quickly. When he arrived, he seized her by her upper arm and pulled her around the corner of another corridor.

"What is this?!" she shouted angrily, "Let go of me! Who the hell do you think you are?!"

"I'm going to give you one more chance to tell the truth... Where did you take the girl?!" he asked forcefully.

"I told you, Sunrise Manor!" Lillian stood firm on her lie.

"Oh really? Then why is it that there was a sighting of her in Los Angeles reported just a few minutes ago?!" he asked.

"What?! I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"We analyzed your pocketknife as well... We found her blood on it... You're the one who removed her tracking chip aren't you?" he revealed.

Lillian held fast against against gasping in shock, "I... I got scared and stuck her with it, but of course it didn't do anything but anger her! I was lucky to escape with my life!" She thought quickly to reply.

"Yes it seems you were... Very lucky indeed..." The man let go of the woman's arm and walked away.

_"Things are getting too dicey here... I shouldn't come in anymore..."_ Lillian thought as she walked away.

---------------------------------------------------

"AH! Hey, watch it will you?!" Seven shouted as her left arm was jostled by the Autobot Medic.

"Stop fidgeting! I can't fix this if you move around!" Ratchet growled back.

"Are you sure you weren't followed?" Optimus asked.

"I hurt them pretty badly... I didn't see anymore after those three, and I don't think they saw me get in Ironhide and drive off... AH! Hey!" Seven replied.

"You're lucky nothing's broken, but I'm going to need to put this arm back in it's socket, which will probably feel somewhat like it's been broken," The medic explained as he looked over the girl.

"It wouldn't be the first time..." Seven said quietly as she looked away.

"If you knew that they were there, why did you risk yourself just for food for _us_?" Sam asked angrily.

Seven gave a small chuckle and said, "I've read up on human anatomy... Normally we're supposed to eat three times a day so food is important for you... I, on the other hand, can go days without feeling a single hunger pang... Just something I got used to..."

There was a brief silence before Ratchet said, "Someone needs to hold her still while I do this, otherwise her other arm and legs could jerk, making this worse..."

Jazz took responsibility in keeping the girl still, gently keeping her body from moving as Ratchet, then, quickly shoved the girl's arm back into it's socket. Sam and Mikaela expected to hear a sharp scream from the girl but she barely gave a whimper.

"All right, we're all done here," Ratchet said as the other Autobot let up on his hold.

Seven sat up and moved her left arm around a little, making sure that they had gotten it back into place.

"How's that?" Ratchet asked.

"That should do it, " Seven replied lightly, rubbing it at a little more to try and smooth away the scorching pain.

"Perhaps it would do you more good if there were more than one of us with you the next time you leave us," Optimus suggested.

"Actually, I was thinking about it. It might be better if I were to go alone from here on out..." Seven replied.

"Why do you think that would be wise?" Prime asked with a raised eye-ridge.

"You guys won't touch humans on account of your own ideals. Mine are a little different. I _will_ harm or kill other humans if I have to. If you guys accompany me anywhere else like that you'll just end up getting yourselves caught... Which tells me that maybe... Maybe I should just be off on my own by tomorrow morning... I mean, thank you for all of your help, but... I think it'd be more problematic if I stuck with you guys..." Seven finished. Not only that, but she didn't want to mention that she still did trust them. She had made good on what Lillian had told her to do by helping the humans, but she wasn't about to stick around with unfamiliar, untrustworthy figures.

"Are you... Sure about this?" Mikaela asked, looking to Sam for help.

"Yeah... You guys have your own mission to go on, and I'm just slowing things down for you... I've got other things to take care of. I hope you understand, " Seven replied quietly.

"If you choose this, then we cannot stop you. But if you reconsider, I don't think anyone here would mind terribly," Optimus offered.

She looked up to the robots who were towering over her even while they sat. They... They wouldn't mind having her around? Did they really mean that?

"Thanks... That means a lot to me actually..." Seven replied.

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"What do you mean that you didn't capture her?! You were _right on_ her!" An angry agent scolded the agents that had engaged the girl in the scuffle earlier that afternoon.

The only agents that were available to be scolded were the first two that she had encountered. The third agent, the one that she had given a hard punch to the face to, was still in the infirmary, his jaw smashed to pieces, as well as his left cheek bones. Although he had suffered this sort of injury, he, as well as the medical officers and other agents knew that the girl could have done much worse, and that she actually held back from killing him. In reality, one really angry punch to the head would have smashed him into immediate death. Needless to say, all three of them who had fought her felt lucky to be alive. The agent that had been encased in concrete thought that he would die of air deprivation but the girl had seemed to left a small air hole in the bottom of the structure that she had built around him. It may have taken them a few hours to dig him out of it, but he had managed to survive, and he felt relieved.

The agent with the broken arm spoke up, "There was no way that we were going to capture her! She had too much skill for just the three of us... We're all lucky to be alive in reality."

"...That does it... I'm calling back to base and demanding that Project Eight be sent out to us... The next time you go _anywhere_, you're taking Eight with you!" he ordered.

"But... But sir! What if we let her loose to grab Seven and she harms innocent civilians!?" another agent worried.

"We have a running deal with her... It should be more than okay to take her with you, as long as you keep extra security around! No more excuses! The next time you go, you are to take Eight with you! Understand?!"

The three men all silently lowered their heads in shame and said, "Yes sir..."

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Chapter Teaser!

It was quiet for a moment before Sam and Mikaela started whispering from the other side of the fire.

"What's all that about?" Seven became annoyed with this.

"I... I mean... We just wanted to know..." Mikaela started.

"Mikaela-" Sam was going to interrupt.

"Know what?" Seven was now curious about what the other two were curious about.


	7. You've seen WHAT!

Hey guys! Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews! Here's a weekend chapter! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own transformers, or any other trademarked name or product in this story. But I DO own project Seven.

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After the day's light was spent, the three humans had managed to light a fire, and the Autobots went into recharge.

"So how are you guys going to try and find this source of life that they need for their planet?" Seven asked, laying near the fire.

"We're not sure... The glasses that had the map on it were destroyed, so I guess just try searching for it a different way of finding it... We have to hurry though," Sam replied.

"Oh? Why's that?" Seven asked.

"Our families were arrested... They took my dog for crying out loud!" he replied.

"Who took them?" Seven wasn't sure who "they" were.

"The same people who are after you... They found out that we had contact with these guys and came straight after us..." Mikaela explained.

"...I'm _really_ sorry to hear that... Hopefully they're only going to question them then..." Seven replied.

It was quiet for a moment before Sam and Mikaela started whispering from the other side of the fire.

"What's all that about?" Seven became annoyed with this.

"I... I mean... We just wanted to know..." Mikaela started.

"Mikaela-" Sam was going to interrupt.

"Know what?" Seven was now curious about what the other two were curious about.

"Do... Do they hurt?..." the girl finished her question.

"Does what hurt?" Seven was confused.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Sam cut them off.

Seven was still wondering when she looked down to see her exposed robotic arm.

"Oh..." she said with a sigh.

"You don't... You don't have to-" Sam started before being cut off.

"Every damn second of every damn day..." Seven replied looking down at the ground.

There was another brief silence before Seven came back out saying, "But it's kind of funny..."

The other two looked up at her solemnly.

"It's funny how after so many years of living with the pain, "Seven continued as she overlooked her arm, "You get used to it... Even though it's always with you..."

Another brief silence.

"So... What exactly is this source of life that you're looking for?" Seven asked.

"They called it the "Allspark". It holds enough energy to keep their entire planet going, but they had a war. The war between the Decepticons and the Autobots. The Allspark, somehow, made it to Earth, and they were hunting for it a long time ago. Their leader, Megatron, crash landed on Earth and was frozen. My great grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, found Megatron. When he did, Megatron accidentally imprinted the map on how to reach the Allspark on my grandfather's glasses... Which was the map that we were going to use to find the Allspark, which was destroyed. After that, Megatron and the Allspark were stowed away somewhere by the government," Sam explained.

Seven's mind suddenly went back in time as her eyes grew wide.

_She climbed in and began crawling through. It didn't take long to get to another vent, where she could see out of, and into a room where there was something she had never seen before. There at the end of the room, stood a giant... Well the only thing to call it was "Robot". It was covered in hoses, which seemed to be pumping out liquid nitrogen, which seemed to keep the beast in cryostasis. The thing towered above anything else in the room, it's shining metal gleaming from the lights above it. The technicians only reached the things ankles as they strode in and out of the room, each with clipboards._

"They... Found Megatron?" Seven asked, staring into the fire.

Sam and Mikaela looked up to the girl.

"Yeah... And we don't know what they did with him from there. The Autobots are sure that he isn't dead, but as for how the government managed to keep him a secret, no one knows... Why?" Sam asked, confused.

"I... Uh... and this Allspark... It has an unlimited source of power?" Seven asked again, her eyes seemingly getting bigger by the second.

"Yeah, it's some giant cube, thing... It provided energy to everything on their planet... What are you getting at?" Mikaela answered this time.

Seven's memories from her childhood were mostly memories that she did not wish to relive. However she did remember something from when she had been taken through certain rooms in the facility where she was at. She remembered hearing about a source of energy that the technicians had discussed about it like children going on about a win in a sporting contest or something.

_"The energy of this thing is absolutely off the charts!"_ she remembered them going on.

"So... That was Megatron?..." she asked herself out loud.

Sam and Mikaela looked at each other and walked around the fire, looking at the girl while she dazed off into the light of the fire.

"What was Megatron? Hey... Hey!" Sam shook the girl's left shoulder to shake her out of this state.

"I can't believe it..." Seven looked away from the fire.

"Can't believe _what_?!" Mikaela was worried about where this was going.

"This entire time I lived in the same facility with the same things that you're looking for! I... I saw Megatron! He's at the same place I lived!" Seven declared finally.

"W-What?! You what?!" Sam didn't know if he could believe what he was hearing.

"The Allspark is there too! I heard them talk about it! They're _both_ there!... Wherever the hell _there_ is..." Seven realized that she had no idea where it was that she was at.

Sam shot up from where he was sitting and ran to the Autobots.

"Guys! Guys! Wake up!" he yelled, giving Bumblebee and a couple others a knock on their hoods.

The Autobots' engines fired up and they quickly transformed back out of their car modes.

"What is it Sam?! Are we under attack?! Have we been found?!" Optimus yelled as he and the others prepared their weapons.

"No no! Guys! We're not under attack-"

"Sam..." Seven tried to interrupt.

"And we haven't been found!" he continued excitedly.

"Sam..." Mikaela also tried to interrupt.

"The Allspark! It's with Megatron!" he announced happily.

"WHAT?!" Four of the Transformers all shouted, Bumblebee just giving a surprised glance.

"It's... It's... Well I mean, Megatron is _near_ the Allspark, but... but... It's actually here!" Sam continued, not making himself very clear.

"How is it better that Megatron is even close to the Allspark?!" Ironhide asked angrily.

"No.. I mean, they're _together_, but he's not... Or I mean... The Allspark is really here!" he tried putting his words together.

The Autobots sighed and rumbled heavily.

"We know it's here on Earth Samuel... That is the _reason_ why we are here," Optimus reasoned, "However the map was destroyed..."

"Ah! But what I'm trying to tell you is, "Sam replied as he ran over to Seven, putting his hands on either side of her head, "We have a _new_ map!"

The Autobots all looked back at the girl, wondering what Sam had meant by that.

"SAM!" Both Mikaela and Seven yelled for the boy.

"What?!" he looked to the two girls.

"Why did you just do that?" Seven asked sourly.

"Do what?!"

"You just got them all excited about something to which we still have no idea about..." Seven explained.

"What do you mean?! You said that you've _seen_ them!" he said, still excited.

"She's seen the Allspark?! _And_ Megatron?!" Ratchet asked.

Seven sighed and said, "Yeah, I guess I have... However the fact remains, _Sam_, that I don't know where that was!" Seven reminded him.

"Yeah!... But... Oh yeah..." Sam said sitting down on the ground, his happiness suddenly dropped.

"But... You _have_ seen them?" Optimus asked.

"Well if what's been described to me is true, then yes... But it still doesn't matter! I don't know where exactly it was..." Seven said again.

As they were discussing this, someone... No, more like some_thing_ had overheard them. A small device within Mikaela's purse moved around just a little bit as it began to transmit something.

"Starscream... Starscream, come in, this is Frenzy!" the little device transmitted.

A second after a few muffled signals came back, one made itself clear.

"This is Starscream, go ahead!"

"We have a possible lead on the location of the Allspark. I'm sending the coordinates right now!"

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Lillian packed a few items for a long road trip and got into her car in the middle of the night.

_"I have to know that they didn't find her... I have to go back and make sure that she's okay. Although if she was spotted, her training would tell her not to go back to the same place twice, so this may be harder to do than I originally thought..."_

Lillian was filled with concern and worry as she got into her car and drove off, to which she thought she was trekking alone.

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"No! No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not, NO!" Seven shouted with her arms crossed and an annoyed look on her face.

"But what if we figure out where it is?!" Sam asked angrily.

"Good! Go and find it then!" she replied.

"But you've seen where it is, you could make this go so much easier!" Optimus tried to reason.

"Forget it! I'm not going back there! If there was one good thing that my training taught me, it's that I should _never_ return to the same place twice! And I'll be very happy not to go back to that hell!" Seven replied.

"But you went back to Los Angelas to get something to eat for us! What about that?!" Mikaela made a point.

Seven looked shocked. She _did_ seem to blow off that rule in order to get them food... But that was something different!

"That was different! I... You guys needed food!" Seven pointed out.

"It's the same thing and you know it!" the other girl snarled.

"No! A calculated risk like that is _nothing _compared to what you're asking me to do!"

"But it's not-" Sam started.

"NO!," Seven turned her back to the group and sat down, looking into the fire. She pulled her knees to her chest and put her arms around her legs like a child would.

"Asking me to go back there is like asking me to jump into a fire pit! I managed to get away from there once, however it is that I did it the first time... I can't take the risk of going back... I'm not going back and you're _not_ going to make me!" Sevens' eyes softened by the light of the fire.

The others were silent for a moment before Optimus spoke.

"You may think that you were alone when you live in that facility, "he began as Seven looked up at him, "But we're going to be with you, every step of the way."

Seven looked to everyone in the group, the Autobots giving her their confident nods, as well as Sam and Mikaela. She thought very deeply, looking back into the dying fire, while everyone else looked to her with great anticipation.

She gave an even more annoyed look and said, "You know... I... Fine! I'll go!"

Everyone sighed in relief.

"I guess this means you'll be staying with us for a while?" Sam asked, hopeful for the help.

"I don't have much of a choice, now, do I?" Seven snapped back.

They all had a good chuckle as they settled back in for the night.

_"I hope you guys know what you're getting into... I hope _I _know what I'm getting into..." _the girl thought as she laid down to try and sleep.

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Chapter Teaser!

A man in a torn, black suit was running down a hallway, holding his right arm. He was sweating bullets, blood running down his face from deep scratches. He stopped and sat down on the floor, breathing rapidly after he rounded another corner of the darkened corridor. He hoped that he had gotten away when a dark figure appeared directly in front of him, holding an arm up with a gun in it's hand.

"N-No! Please!" the man yelled as he put his own arms up in front of his face in defense.

The figure smiled evily, and he could barely make out anything but the smile and those bright yellow eyes.


	8. Morning Ambush!

My last weekend update! And I again, have to thank all of you for your encouragement! Here's the next installment! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, blah blah blah, I own Project Seven, blah blah blah

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A man in a torn, black suit was running down a hallway, holding his right arm. He was sweating bullets, blood running down his face from deep scratches. He stopped and sat down on the floor, breathing rapidly after he rounded another corner of the darkened corridor. He hoped that he had gotten away when a dark figure appeared directly in front of him, holding an arm up with a gun in it's hand.

"N-No! Please!" the man yelled as he put his own arms up in front of his face in defense.

The figure smiled evilly, and he could barely make out anything but the smile and those bright yellow eyes.

"We had a d-deal!" he yelled in terror.

The figure laughed in a maddening manner before looking back to the man, cocking the small pistol to shoot.

"...Deal's off... I've decided to take care of the woman on my own!"

Down the hallway the reverberation of he sound of a gunshot made it's way.

There was only silence.

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Before she decided that it was something random, four people burst through the doors of the lab. The girl jumped back until she saw them appear at her cell's door and broke through the lock, opening the door.

"Seven!" a voice shouted.

"F-Five?!" she asked as she walked out of the cell.

"Come on! Let's get out of here!" Five yelled as she took her younger friend by the right arm and they all ran through the long corridors.

"How did you manage this?!" Seven asked.

"We managed to set a trap for the guards, and got out! We needed to come and get you before we left!" Five explained as they ran.

Seven gave the woman an ecstatic expression as she continued to run with the others. As they entered another corridor to head for the elevators, they saw guards running out of another hallway.

"There they are!" one of the guards yelled as they all set their guns' aim on the runners.

Five pulled the younger girl around a corner and the other three used their speed and strength to dodge every shot, killing the guards as they approached them.

"Come on!" one of the other three yelled.

"Let's go!" Five ordered as she pulled Seven again.

They all got to the elevator as one of them turned to argue with the others.

"I told you! We need to send the elevator up to throw off suspicion and jump to the bottom of the shaft to crawl through the air vents!" he argued.

Another boy of the group looked to the other and said, "We don't have time! There's too many of us and we can get through here faster with just the skeleton crew. If we waste time we risk having reinforcements called on us and that'll make things much more difficult!"

The elevator came back to their floor and they piled in. The doors closed and one of them pressed the button "**1**".

"Okay, everyone be prepared, this will be the most difficult part. They're probably going to be waiting for us so we need to be on guard!"

BOOM

"What was that?!"

"Seven! Wake up!" the voice of a scared girl suddenly came into perspective.

"Five?" Seven asked in a small voice.

"What? No! Come on! Get up!" Mikaela shoved the girl into reality.

Seven scrambled to her feet, remembering where she was.

"What's going on?" she yelled as she grouped together with the other two humans.

"The Decepticons found us!" Sam replied.

"Get the children out of here!" Optimus ordered.

Bumblebee transformed and opened the doors, Sam and Mikaela jumping in.

"Come on! Let's go!" Mikaela motioned for Seven to join them. Bumblebee held the driver's side door open for Seven to climb in.

"You guys go ahead! I'll stay and help out here!" Seven announced as she shooed them away.

A giant metal hand shoved the girl into the compartment of Bumblebee's cab as Optimus spoke, "You mustn't fight! They're too strong! Go Bumblebee!"

The Camaro spun out it's tires as the Autobot sped off with the three humans inside.

"Wait! Take me back there! I can fight them!" Seven's command fell on deaf ears.

"It's only one Decepticon against the four of them, they' should be fine, right Bee?!" Sam asked for reassurance.

"But..." Seven looked out of the rear window and said, "Is that all there are? Just the one? Then why are we running away?"

"Uh... Well I'm not sure... I would assume that there would, ultimately, be more of them but..." Sam seemed unsure.

Seven turned around and looked at the steering wheel.

"Bumblebee! It's a trap! Turn around!" Seven demanded as she took the wheel, trying to force the Autobot around, but even her strong, robotic arm couldn't make him budge.

"What are you talking about?!" Mikaela asked.

"If there's more of them, then they're probably using one to distract the rest of the Autobots! The rest will be coming to-"

BOOM

Several vehicles appeared around Bee as he skidded to a stop.

"-Get us..." Seven looked back out of the rear window to see that they had gotten too far away from the others to be seen by them.

"...Standard battle procedure if there are more of them... and less of you..." Seven said in an annoyed tone.

A police cruiser transformed into a giant Decepticon and shouted, "Hand over the map!"

The three humans got out of the car cabin before Bumblebee transformed and went into a defensive position.

"There is no more map! It was destroyed!" Sam yelled up to them.

"We know!" another Decepticon transformed.

"We want the _other_ map!" It seethed.

"The other... map?" Mikaela and Sam looked to each other and then behind them to Seven.

"Oh damn..." The girl looked at the towering giants who were staring down upon her.

"Just hand her over and we'll let you go!" The police cruiser's new form shouted.

Bumblebee went for the cruiser and another knocked him away easily, knocking him offline.

"Bee!" Sam and Mikaela yelled.

"You have no choice! Come with us now!" Another shouted.

"_I'm_ not going anywhere without a good _fight_!" Seven shouted, standing in a defensive position.

The three Decepticons howled with laughter.

"A _Human_?! Fighting against three of the most _powerful_ Decepticons?! This will be no challenge!" the cruiser cackled.

"You two go to Bee!" Seven ordered.

"Y-Yeah... Right..." Sam took hold of the dazed Mikaela and they ran to the offline Autobot.

"I warn you, you _will_ die!" The cruiser shouted as it motioned for the other two to stand down.

"Don't get so cocky just yet!" Seven shouted up to them.

"Then _die_ by the hands of me! Barricade!" The cruiser shouted as it swung a giant arm at the girl.

Seven jumped extremely high in the air. At least forty feet above the arm of the Decepticon, as the girl came close to Barricade's face.

"What's this?!" Barricade shouted in confusion as the girl struck him in the side of the face with a hard kick.

The Decepticon's body flew backwards into the other two as he skidded to a stop.

Seven landed on the ground and smiled evilly.

"What's the matter?! Having some trouble with the measly _Human_?!" She taunted.

Barricade and the other two quickly came back to a stand.

"You fool! Now you've angered me!" Barricade shouted as he ran forwards.

"Then this might _really _piss you off!" Seven shouted as she ran forward as well.

Barricade stopped quickly and aimed a gun on his arm.

"Huh?!" Seven wasn't counting on an oversized weapon but she kept running anyway.

Barricade laughed as he fired off several rounds of his weapon.

Seven clapped her hands together as she ran and touched her arm, transmuting it into a large shield. She placed her shielding arm in front of her as she used her extreme speeds to dodge each shot. When she approached the Decepticon she jumped up again, this time backhanding the giant metal fiend. The backhand managed to knock Barricade out of alignment, but he brought up his other arm, swatting the girl to the ground.

"Seven!" the other two humans shouted.

The girl landed on the ground, feeling a bit of pain in the left side of her ribcage. She quickly got up and dodged an attempt to squash her flat and landed on the other side of Barricade, clapping her hands together again. She touched her right arm and it transmuted back into it's normal look.

"Let's try metal to dirt!" She shouted as she clapped her hands together again.

Instead of transmuting her arm, she bent down to the ground and made contact with it. The ground began to shake as a giant, dirt fist jumped out of the ground and knocked Barricade over, crushing him against the ground and pounding at his armor.

"Whoa..." Sam stood, stunned, while Mikaela looked over their robotic friend.

It was obvious that Seven tired out quickly from all of the fighting and she stopped the attack, standing back up to overlook her work.

"All right! She did it! She destroyed him!" Sam danced around happily.

"...I'm not so sure Sam..." Mikaela replied, pointing towards where Barricade had fallen.

The cloud of dust started to settle and the metal figure of Barricade stood back up, even more angered.

_"Damn it! I'm trained to fight large groups of humans, not one of these guys! I need something stronger than this!"_ Seven thought to herself as she caught her breath.

The other two Decepticons joined with Barricade and he pointed to the girl.

"That arm! It mimics Cybertronian armor! How is this possible?!" Barricade shouted.

Seven didn't answer him. She was still catching her breath but the look she gave the metal figure was a dangerous one indeed. The sweat on her brow glimmered in the newly arising sun.

"If we destroy that arm, then you have no defense!, " Barricade announced as he motioned for the other two Decepticons to go forth.

"Oh no!" Mikaela yelled in fear as she saw the two make their way towards their new friend.

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Chapter Teaser!

"We don't have the map, StarScream!" Optimus said as he ran forward to attack the Decepticon.

StarScream jumped out of the way, shooting off a large canon of his own. Optimus just barely managed to get back before the ground beneath him shook with the powerful wave of the blast.

"Perhaps you don't! But by this time, Barricade and BoneCrusher should have it!" StarScream taunted.

The Autobots snapped to attention after hearing this.

"What are you talking about, StarScream?!" Ratchet shouted.


	9. To be me

Hey guys! Once again, thank you for your inspiring words of encouragement! Here's the next update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own transformers, I just own Project Seven!

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Ironhide shot off one of his canon's at StarScream, making the powerful Decepticon jump out of the way and land near Jazz, giving him a punch to the face, causing him to fall over.

"We don't have the map, StarScream!" Optimus said as he ran forward to attack the Decepticon.

StarScream jumped out of the way, shooting off a large canon of his own. Optimus just barely managed to get back before the ground beneath him shook with the powerful wave of the blast.

"Perhaps you don't! But by this time, Barricade and BoneCrusher should have it!" StarScream taunted.

The Autobots snapped to attention after hearing this.

"What are you talking about, StarScream?!" Ratchet shouted.

"By spending all of your time trying to fight against me, you've let your guard down! And, by now, the _girl_ should be in the hands of the rest of our little group!" StarScream returned with an "in your face" tone.

"What?!" Optimus shouted looking back towards where Bumblebee had taken the children.

"Optimus, Seven!" Ironhide reminded his commanding officer.

"Right! Ironhide! Ratchet! Go and find the children!" he ordered.

"Oh no you don't!" StarScream tore into Optimus and the others angrily went after the Decepticon.

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Seven was thrown to the ground, but stood quickly. She was covered in dirt and her sweat pants had been torn on her left leg from the knee-joints down. Her rapid breathing kept her from being able to jump as high or as quickly, but she managed to avoid attack after attack.

_"This isn't going to get me anywhere very fast... But I've got no choice! I have to keep fighting!"_ The girl thought as she jumped up and struck BoneCrusher in the side of the face, then used his body to leap from him to the other Decepticon, punching him hard in the back. She landed on the ground, and then ran a little farther out to turn and survey the situation.

Sam turned to Bumblebee and ran over to his face, giving him a few hard knocks.

"Come on Bee, we need you!" he tried to get an answer, but to no avail.

BoneCrusher and the other Decepticon banded together and ran towards Seven. The girl prepared her arm as the sharpened blade that she had shown the Autobots earlier and ran forward, hoping to cut some major circuitry in at least one of two who were attacking her. Being within feet from tearing into them, the two Decepticons smirked and separated quickly, revealing Barricade behind them smirking as well, he quickly aimed the weapon on his arm and shot off a round. Seven couldn't dodge the shot quick enough and put up her robotic arm to shield herself, causing the arm to be torn apart upon impact.

"NO!" Sam and Mikaela shouted.

Seven was thrown back several hundred feet and skidded to a stop. She slowly stood up, her left arm cradling the scrap remains of her right arm.

"Now you have no choice but to come with us!" Barricade shouted proudly.

Seven ran towards BoneCrusher and shouted, "I've still got two, working, legs!"

She jumped at the Decepticon and his hand came up to swat at her. She jumped from his armor to his hand, which as he was still swinging to hit her, and it flung her farther up into the air towards where the other two were watching.

_"Even with my legs this is going to hurt!"_ Seven realized as she hit the ground and rolled to a stop at the feet of Sam and Mikaela.

The two teens grabbed at Seven, seeing the deep cuts and scrapes on her back, they turned the unconscious girl over on her back, seeing blood running down her face.

"Now, hand her over and we _might_ leave without killing the rest of you!" Barricade shouted as he stomped up to the four of them.

Barricade reached down to pick the girl up and swat the other two away when he was thrown back from a shot to the chest. He landed on the ground near the other two Decepticons and they looked up towards where the shot had come from. Sam and Mikaela looked back and saw that Bumblebee had gotten the shot off, as he pulled himself up.

"Bee!" Sam shouted happily up to his robotic friend.

Another shot came from another direction, striking one of the Decepticons down. The two humans looked over to see the other four Autobots running towards them, their weapons at aim.

"The others are coming too!" Mikaela suddenly felt a wave of relief.

"Stand down for now! But we'll be back soon enough!" Barricade announced as he and the others transformed into their alternate states, leaving the scene quick, just before the Autobots arrived.

"Is everyone all right?" Optimus asked as they arrived to the scene.

Sam and Mikaela looked down to Seven lying motionless, then looked back up to Optimus.

"We had a little problem..." Sam said quietly.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"She knew what they were planning?" Optimus asked.

They had managed to find some quick shade near some small mountainous regions. Optimus was asking questions while Ratchet was figuring out how the hell to put a human back together.

"Well it only took her a short time before she had seen through their plan... She tried to warn us, but that's when they showed up..." Sam replied.

"She said something about the fact that they were using some sort of battle procedure... A ploy to get us away from the whole group. But by the time we realized what she was talking about we were surrounded!" Mikaela added.

"Well Ratchet? What can you tell?" Optimus turned to ask.

"I've stopped the bleeding, but she has some broken bones. The legs need a bit of work on the knee joints, and I'm not sure exactly sure how long it would take to reproduce another working arm like what she had. For the type of technology that these humans have, they were very close to decent armor. You said she used it to shield herself from a blast of Barricade's canon?" Ratchet asked.

"Yeah... She used her alchemy to change it into a shield quickly and the blast just blew it apart. She didn't have time to get out of the way because the other two had tricked her," Sam replied.

"If she fought the way that you two had described, then she really _is_ a well trained soldier!" Ironhide declared.

"Yeah, but I don't think that she was trained to handle this kind of attack! I think we're lucky to be alive as it is..." Mikaela snapped back.

"So uh... How did you guys get rid of that other guy?" Sam asked.

"It was strange. He just stopped attacking and transformed into the airborne structure, leaving us," Ratchet thought aloud.

"He must have thought that he had distracted us long enough for the others to have taken Seven," Ironhide replied.

"Yes, I believe he thought that as well," Optimus agreed.

"But wait... How did the Decepticons know where to find us? And how did they know that Seven may know the location of the Allspark?" Mikaela asked.

The Autobots looked to one another, Optimus looking back to the teens, "Good question..."

"The girl is awake!" Ratchet announced.

All eyes turned to her as her own slowly batted open. She looked around slowly to see everyone with concerned looks on their faces.

"W-What's... going on?" Seven asked in a raspy tone.

"You hit the ground pretty hard back there, and it knocked you out," Sam replied, looking to Mikaela and Bumblebee.

Seven snapped up from lying down and said, "Are they still-?!"

"No, they're gone. Just relax," Mikaela assured.

Seven realized that she had just sat up with only one arm and looked to her left shoulder, seeing the shredded remains of her robotic arm.

"Damn it... I should have known what they were doing! I'm trained for shit like this!" Seven shouted at herself angrily.

"From what we understand, "Optimus began, "You fought bravely."

"It wasn't enough though was it?!" Seven replied sourly.

"It was enough to keep the others alive," Optimus tried to reason.

"...Barely..." Seven looked over her bent up legs.

"Do not be discouraged, what's important is that you and the others weren't fatally injured," Ratchet replied.

"Yeah... I guess... But now I'm useless... Yay... Hoorah... Good for us..." Seven sighed.

"Hey come on! That was some real kick-ass stuff you did! Who else, born on _this_ planet, can say that they could do what you can?" Sam said happily.

Seven froze from looking over herself and growled, "_If_ you remember correctly, I didn't _ask_ for this..."

Mikaela spoke quickly to try and rectify the situation, "That's not what he meant! He was trying to say-"

"I know what he was trying to say!..." Seven stopped her dead in her tracks.

After a second of tension, Seven sighed and explained, "Yeah, I know what I can do. But it's not what I chose. I didn't tell someone that this is how I wanted to be... These guys, "she looked around to the Autobots, "know that when they see themselves, they _are_ who they were meant to be. I wake up and see myself and remember that I was someone's science experiment..." she finished coldly.

Looking back to the other humans, Seven could easily see that she harmed their feelings in some way.

"I-I'm sorry... I didn't mean to blow up at you... This isn't your fault..." She said quietly.

"...No it's okay. I'd probably be upset if I were you too..." Sam replied.

Seven wanted the subject to drop so she changed it.

"So... What happened?" she asked.

"Bumblebee managed to fend off the Decepticons that you were battling," Optimus began, " and we arrived in time to aid him."

"So then... Everyone's okay?" Seven asked honestly.

"There was some minor damage, but none as great as yours," Ratchet answered.

"Oh," Seven replied looking back at her arm.

"It may take some time for us to rebuild your arm," Optimus advised.

Seven gave a slight chuckle and said, "Ironic... If I had my arm I could use Alchemy and rebuild it, as well as repair my legs back to one hundred percent."

Everyone looked to the girl again and Jazz spoke before the others, "You mean you can r'pair anythin' back to it's original state?"

"Well, almost anything. I can't repair human flesh," Seven replied.

"If you can do this, then could you not repair the original map?" Optimus asked.

"Well if there were certain markings on the glasses, then I couldn't guarantee that it would be the same. Hell, with glasses, they require certain degrees of bends in the lenses. And I couldn't reproduce those exact specifications unless I was shown what those specifications were," Seven replied.

"Well I guess we just have to find another way to find the Allspark..." Sam spoke as the others grunted in disappointment.

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Chapter Teaser!

As Ratchet worked on Seven's legs, with the girl protesting the entire time of course, Sam realized that Mikaela was no longer with the group.

She had gone to a part of the small rocky area that gave her an overlooking view of the interstate, watching cars roll through on their daily treks.

"Mikaela?" Sam asked, nearly startling the girl.

She turned and looked to him with a small smile and then turned back to watching the nearby road.

"Hey, what are you doing up here by yourself?" he asked quietly.


	10. New Identity

Hey guys! As always, thank you for your comments, they are greatly appreciated! This one is kind of a big post, so it'll be a couple of days before I post again! Ack! I'm posting faster than I can type! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own transformers, nor any other trademarked name used in this story

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It was early morning and Lillian had managed to make it to the outskirts of the city of Los Angeles. She drove to the park where she had left Seven and cautiously got out of her car, looking around.

"Seven! Are you here?!" Lillian asked in a loud whisper. It was too early for there to be anyone in the park, however if there was someone nearby that could possibly hear what she was saying, she wanted to minimize what they heard.

Lillian looked around for several minutes before coming to the conclusion that the girl was no longer in the area, which was good that she was out of the way of the feds, but she was worried about how long it might take to actually find her. She sighed and went to sit back inside her car. As she shut and locked the door, she decided that it was best that she relaxed for a minute to think about where she was going to next. She turned the key halfway in the ignition, listening to the early morning news on the radio and leaned her seat back to rest for a moment.

"I should have known better than to park at a rest stop where no one was at, but I needed a short rest. The next thing I know a hand just... Well I guess the only way to describe it is that a hand just punched through my window and I was pulled out. She had incredible strength! I don't think that she would have even needed to point that gun to my head and demand for my car, she threw me aside like I was a rag-doll... It's the scariest thing that I've ever been through..."

"It... It couldn't be her... I told her not to hurt anyone unless she absolutely had to... Plus that woman had yellow contact lenses... unless... she changed her appearance just slightly to throw off any suspicion... But... No, it's not her, they said that she was most likely heading for here and she wouldn't leave and come back like that..." Lillian tried to reason with herself.

As the woman talked to herself, a car pulled up down the street and she suddenly looked up to see that it was an early morning paper delivery to one of the electronic news boxes. As the man finished putting the stack of papers inside of the box and drove away, Lillian drove up closer to it and shifted her hands around her pockets searching for a quarter. Finally finding one, she put the coin in the machine and grabbed a paper. Looking at the front page, she saw an enlarged photo of what looked to be an underpass, several police vehicles and helicopters surrounding it.

Walking back to her car, she sat down in the driver's seat and looked carefully at the picture. It seemed to be a far away view from behind the overpass, a yellow camaro driving towards it from the other side. Looking at the revealed side of the overpass, she saw something strange... She saw a figure in a long, black overcoat, looking under the concrete structure.

The passage under the photo simply stated, "_Photo courtesy of a amateur photographer, just before he was removed from the area by nearby police._"

"So she _was_ spotted! But what happened I wonder?... Oh Seven, I should have stayed with you..." Lillian brooded over the morning news.

As she paid no mind to her surroundings, another vehicle, a black SUV, pulled up behind her slowly...

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As Ratchet worked on Seven's legs, with the girl protesting the entire time of course, Sam realized that Mikaela was no longer with the group.

She had gone to a part of the small rocky area that gave her an overlooking view of the interstate, watching cars roll through on their daily treks.

"Mikaela?" Sam asked, nearly startling the girl.

She turned and looked to him with a small smile and then turned back to watching the nearby road.

"Hey, what are you doing up here by yourself?" he asked quietly.

Mikaela was quiet for a moment until she spoke up saying, "You... You weren't supposed to hear any of that..."

Sam was a little confused, "Hear what?"

Mikaela looked back to him with a slight glare just before her look softened.

"About... About the stuff with my dad... And my juvenile record..." she started.

"Hey, you don't... have to say anything. It's okay, really..." Sam stopped her.

There was an awkward pause before they heard some nearby shouting.

"OW! HEY!" a girl's voice yelled.

"Hold still!" a male voice scolded.

"What are you doing with that?! _Don't_ even think about it!... Ratchet, I mean it!" the girl's voice stated in a warning tone.

"It would make this go so much easier!" Ratchet's voice pleaded.

"No! No, no!... Hey... why are you guys looking at me like that?..."

"Just hold still now, will ya?" Jazz's voice could be heard.

"I'm warning you!" the girl said in a dangerous voice.

There were several loud "clanging" noises for a moment.

"There! Got it!" Ratchet announced happily.

Sam and Mikaela chuckled for a moment before they both stared down at the road.

"So... You okay? I-I mean that whole ordeal this morning was pretty rough..." Sam asked.

"It was pretty scary wasn't it?" Mikaela shrugged it off.

"Yeah... I thought that we were done for," Sam agreed.

"I thought Seven was done for... And Bee!..." Mikaela replied, her voice trailing off.

Sam decided to change the subject up a little and said, "You know what I was thinking? I think we need to give Seven a new name?"

Mikaela looked to him with a questioning look and asked, "What brought _this_ up?"

"Well I mean... You heard her down there... She thinks that she's someone's science experiment... Maybe if she had a more normal name, she'd start feeling like a regular human," Sam explained looking into Mikaela's confused face, "But... Maybe it's a dumb idea anyway..."

Mikaela looked away for a moment and then looked back to the boy, "No... I think it's a good idea."

Sam looked to the girl once again and smiled a little, "Really? You think so?"

"Yeah, I mean, she's lived her entire life as just a number. Maybe it's time she knows that she's more than that," Mikaela agreed.

"So... What should we call her then?" Sam asked. He thought it was a good idea, but when it came to thinking of names, he was at a loss for words.

Mikaela looked back towards the interstate for a moment, her mind thinking carefully. Her eyes grew wide for a second and she looked back to Sam with a happier look.

"How about Catherine?" she asked.

Sam chuckled and asked, "Where'd you come up with that?"

"Well, Cat, for short. She sort of reminded of a cat, the way she moved around when she fought. What do you think?" she looked to Sam for understanding.

Sam smiled softly at the girl and said, "Yeah, she kind of _does_ remind me of a cat, now that I think about it. Okay then, Cat it is!"

"Give that back! I'm serious!" The girl's voice piped up again.

"We'd better go and see what's going on," Sam said as he and Mikaela walked back to where the others were.

They walked to the group, only to see Ratchet, holding one of the girl's robotic legs, while looking it over for repairs, and Jazz and Ironhide holding the girl back.

"Jus' calm down!" Jazz pleaded.

"We're just gonna repair things up for ya, that's all!" Ironhide added.

Seven sighed and laid back down on the ground, obviously worn out from exhausting herself arguing.

"Fine..." she huffed.

Optimus walked up to Sam and Mikaela and said, "Perhaps you should try and talk to her. She seems rather upset at the moment," he said in an almost "pleasepleaseplease" voice.

"Sure, Optimus," Sam laughed as he and Mikaela approached the girl, who was still catching her breath.

"Hey there, how's it going?" Sam asked.

The girl narrowed her eyes at Sam and said sarcastically, "Just _peachy_..."

"Well uh... We had something we wanted to ask you," Sam started, Mikaela looking at him with a "Maybe-now-is-not-the-time" kind of face.

Sam ignored Mikaela and continued, "We know that you feel more like a "project" rather than the human that you really are, "saying this made the girl and the Autobots all look at him.

"But... We thought that maybe, you'd like a new name?" he finished.

There was a long pause of silence. The Autobots looked to each other as if they were trying to figure out what would change about the girl if she had a new name.

Seven looked from Sam to Mikaela with a _"Is he serious?!"_ sort of look about her.

"We thought that maybe you'd like to start anew. To stop living as someone's experiment, and more like a human. What do you think?" Mikaela gave a weak smile, worried that maybe it wasn't such a good idea in the first place.

Seven looked, silently, towards the blue-ish sky with a solemn look.

"I never thought about that... that I was human, I mean... It's like I never _was_ a human in the first place..." She said quietly as she looked to her mangled right arm.

"But you _are_ human! You've just been taught differently for so long... It's time to make a fresh start, don't you think?" Mikaela reasoned.

"I wouldn't even know what to call myself, though..." the girl sounded a little less sure of herself as her voiced toned down quite a bit.

"We thought of that too!" Sam said happily.

The tired girl looked over at Sam and asked, "You have?"

Sam nodded towards Mikaela and said, "You should say it. You thought of it anyway."

Seven and the Autobots looked to Mikaela, all wondering what she had in mind.

"Well, Sam and I agreed that you sort of remind us of a cat when you fight. You move so quickly, and you react to things quickly too. So we thought maybe we'd call you "Catherine", but "Cat" for short," she explained.

Everyone looked to the exhausted fighter as she stared back up towards the sky, almost with a blank expression on her face. Mikaela and Sam both thinking that she didn't like the idea.

"If...If you don't like that name, we could always think of something else..." Mikaela said in a soft voice.

Before anyone knew it, the girl had a wide smile across her face and she laughed. It was the first time that they had seen a genuine smile on the girl's face, or heard a genuine laugh from her. So, of course, they were all suddenly very worried.

"Are... Are you okay?" Sam asked, the Autobots approaching closer with curiosity.

The girl's laugh continued for only a short moment before she said, "I'm fine, I just... I think it's going to take some time getting used to being called that," she said in a cheerful tone.

Sam and Mikaela looked at each other with cheerful looks themselves, feeling like they had just taken a step into integrating the girl into feeling more human.

"Cat" laughed again but suddenly stopped as her eyes shut and her head rolled to the left.

"C-Cat?" Sam asked, not getting a response.

"Hey, are you all right?!" Mikaela took the girl by the chin, swinging her face back up.

"Ratchet!" Sam yelled frantically.

The medic looked to the girl and scanned her with his optics.

"She'll be fine. She just over-exhausted herself from all the fighting…. and arguing," he replied.

Before anyone could feel relieved, Ironhide spoke up.

"Optimus, sir. We need to get on the move again. This place is too close to human contact and we need to stay out of sight," he announced.

Optimus looked to Ratchet and asked, "Is it safe to move "Cat" around?"

"I don't see why not. She has no internal bleeding or any fractures to her spinal chord or neck. As long as she's asleep she won't feel the pain of moving her two broken ribs around," Ratchet replied, sure of himself.

"Good. Let's roll out Autobots!" Optimus ordered.

The five transformed into their alternate, car forms. Mikaela and Sam picked Cat up and gently set her in the backseat of Ratchet's Hummer form. They then, jumped into BumbleBee and they all sped off.

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Chapter Teaser!

_Cat turned around and around, but did not see anything nearby. That was until she turned towards one end of the corridor. She saw, bright, yellow eyes, staring back at her._

_"Who... Who are you?" Cat asked, wondering why she couldn't pick up any sound or smells from the area._

_"I know who I'm not... And I know who you are... Come now, Seven, surely you remember my voice?" the woman asked in a low growl._

_"I-I don't know who you are! Why don't you just reveal yourself to me?!" Cat asked, giving the woman her own dangerous growl to return the threat._

_The eyes began to glow brighter as footsteps could be heard echoing the hallways._


	11. Waking Nightmare

Hello everyone! As always, thank you for your gracious commenting! Here's the next installment! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or any other trademarked product or name that is used in this story. I DO own Project Seven!!

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"So basically, this is the run down... Seven escaped three days ago, we still can't find her..." A man in a black suit faced the same table of men and women who had been in charge of all of the "projects" in the facility.

"Yes sir..." the man in the middle of the other five nodded cowardly.

"We sent Eight out to find her under the supervision of our own people, and she nearly killed every one of them, also leaving our grasp..." the man paced the other direction.

The members on the board all nodded without saying a word.

"And, now, one of our own board members is missing, presumably in order to find Five, whom she helped set free..."

The other board members nodded once again in agreement.

"And to top it all off, the aliens escaped with Sam Witwicky and his little girlfriend?!" The man turned to the board members, a few of the lab technicians also present.

"I'm afraid so, sir..." one of the board members replied.

The man started to pace the room once again. He was quiet up until he turned back to them and yelled, "None of you leave! You're _all_ going to be questioned! This _entire_ facility is under lockdown until further notice, or until we find all three of our escapee's! Is that understood?!" The man asked gruffly.

"But Agent Simmons! We already know that Lillian was the only one involved in Seven's escape and-"

"THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" The man shouted back.

"Until all of these mistakes are fixed, NO ONE is leaving! My men and I are going to be hot on their trails until they are all found, and all of you will be interrogated until we find some answers!" Simmons demanded.

"Now tell me... How was it that we lost track of the board member, Lillian Andrews?" Simmons asked in a quiet tone.

"We had followed her until a few miles outside of Los Angeles... Most of our vehicles were disabled at a rest stop. Somehow, the engine blocks were all cracked except for one, which was stolen... No one saw anything because the cameras in all three of the other vehicles shorted out at the same time... We can't imagine who did something like that..." one of the board members spoke up.

Simmons turned to the woman who had spoken and asked, "You... You don't have any idea?! Isn't it obvious?! Project Eight caught up with them, somehow, and got away! Got away with government property!"

Agent Simmons sighed and said, "Section Seven has terminated the partner in the projects, Section Eleven. We have disbanded them completely, and as soon as all of this is settled... Well let's just hope that there are no federal charges brought upon any of you. If you're lucky enough for that to not happen, then you should start looking for other jobs! Section Seven is terminating the projects, and as soon as they're both returned, they will be destroyed! Is that clear?!"

"...Of course... sir..." a male board member spoke as they all lowered their heads in shame.

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_Cat found herself back in the elevator at the facility where she had escaped from. She turned, and saw that the doors were opened. She looked around outside of the elevator and saw that the lights were dimmed. Looking down at her hands, she saw the same wooden shackles on her wrists._

_"W-What? What's going on here? I escaped from here!" she said aloud as she turned and saw the two guards and lab technicians, holding their knees in pain._

_She looked to her hands again and saw two small pistols, and felt a rifle strap over her shoulder. She reached in and pushed the buttons for the top floor, still wondering how it was that she was back in the facility. The elevator doors closed and she heard the machine make it's way up to the top floor._

_"You abandoned me..." a woman's voice could be heard clearly as if it were right next to her._

_Cat turned around and around, but did not see anything nearby. That was until she turned towards one end of the corridor. She saw, bright, yellow eyes, staring back at her._

_"Who... Who are you?" Cat asked, wondering why she couldn't pick up any sound or smells from the area._

_"I know who I'm not... And I know who you are... Come now, Seven, surely you remember my voice?" the woman asked in a low growl._

_"I-I don't know who you are! Why don't you just reveal yourself to me?!" Cat asked, giving the woman her own dangerous growl to return the threat._

_The eyes began to glow brighter as footsteps could be heard echoing the hallways._

_"I'll give you a hint... I made everyone believe that it was a bright idea to save you... And when it came down to it, you betrayed us! I thought I could trust you, Seven... I treated you as if you were family... And you betrayed me, as well as the other three!" the voices' rage grew in intensity._

_Cat gasped as she looked into the narrowing yellow eyes._

_"...No... No it can't be... Y-You died... A long time ago!" Cat shouted at the figure._

_The voice rattled off a horrid laugh._

_"You forgot to mention about your betrayal... You're the reason that none of us escaped in the first place!" The voice yelled._

_"...no... I didn't betray you! I-I was so young... I didn't... I didn't know what to do..." Cat's voice started to turn into a younger girl's voice, as she felt herself shrink into the form of her younger self._

_"It's time that you faced your FEAR!" The voice shouted as the eyes seemed to pass through her._

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Cat sat up quickly, bumping her head on the roof of Ratchet's cabin. Her mind suddenly couldn't think of what it was she had dreamt, so her body began to relax as she calmed down. She looked to her legs and saw that they had both been repaired. Looking outside, Cat could see that instead of the hot desert, they were nestled behind a scrap yard. The day had already turned into night, as she noticed Sam and Mikaela's sleeping forms within Bumblebee's Camaro cabin. She looked into the front seat of the Hummer and saw that none of the dials or lights were lit up.

_"They must be in recharge right now..."_ Cat thought to herself.

Before deciding to settle back into sleep, Cat caught an unusual scent. Unusual, but... pleasant...

She looked around the cab of the Hummer but could not find the source of the smell from within it. No, this was outside.

_"If I'm quiet enough, I won't wake them!"_ Cat thought to herself as she pulled, gently, on the door handle.

The door opened silently, and she stepped outside, feeling the pain in her ribs, suddenly. She winced, but did not make a sound. As she stepped out onto the grounds of the scrap yard, she could feel how new the joints and mechanisms in her legs were.

_"This feels... pretty good! There isn't anymore pain from just walking!"_ she turned to Ratchet's alternate form and in her mind gave him a great bit of appreciation.

Before getting too far into the appreciation, the wonderful scent caught her nose again and she walked away from the group, of course, not bothering to close the door. Her new legs carried her off in direction of the sweet-smelling scent.

The girl had walked for a few minutes, wondering if she should turn back until she came upon a garden. The greens were behind a chain-length fence, that seemed to be attached to a small building. She walked to the front of it and read the sign.

"Farmer's Market?" The girl questioned it for only a moment before her stomach gave a most gruesome growl.

She walked back behind the building and looked to the top of the fence. It was perfectly short enough for her to make a jump with her new legs.

"Time to test these babies out!" Cat gave a sarcastic scoff to herself as she bent at the knees and jumped.

Cat expected to jump rather high, but she managed to clear a good fifty feet above the top of the, already twenty foot tall, fencing. She was quite excited by this and readied herself for a landing that would surely bend up her new knee-joints. With a hard landing, Cat had closed her eyes. She waited a moment before re-opening them, noticing that the landing was much better than she had expected it to be.

"I wonder if he could make me some spares..." She laughed to herself as she continued through the gardens.

Walking around rows and rows of colorful flowers, Cat found herself at a row, with which an overhead sign read "Fruits and Veggies". She looked down at one table and saw a bushel of apples, green apples to be precise. She carefully picked one up and smelled it. It's sweet scent buzzed around in her nasal cavities like nothing she had ever smelled before.

Looking around, Cat took a bite of the apple, her teeth sinking into it's cool skin. Her mouth watered with every bit of the apple that she chewed up.

"This is fantastic! I've read about all of these things, but have never actually tasted it!" Cat exclaimed to herself happily.

"I should take some of this back to Sam and Mikaela! This is _way_ better than any "Big Mac"!" Cat told herself as she gathered up several apples in her arm, the first one she had placed in her teeth to hold onto.

"Hello... Seven..." a familiar voice spoke suddenly and Cat turned to see who it was.

Bright, yellow eyes stared the girl down from just a few feet away. She let go the apple in her teeth drop to the ground, as well as a few of the apples that she had been carrying in her only available appendage.

"Oh? Don't stop enjoying yourself on my own account... You must have been starving..." The sarcastic voice trailed off, Cat never took her eyes off of the woman walking towards her.

"What's with that stupid look on your face? You're not surprised are you?" The eyes shifted from Cats' own blue eyes onto the girl's right side, looking at the mangled remains of her arm.

"You've been training, I see... Then you shouldn't have any problem defending yourself!" The figure's voice grew in intensity as she lashed forward at Cat.

-------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Teaser!

"Sam? What is it?" she asked in a tired, strained voice.

Sam wasn't sure what to do at first, he just pointed towards the sleeping form of Ratchet. Mikaela looked over to where he was pointing and noticed that the medic's door was wide open. She shot up into sitting as well and the two humans bolted out of Bumblebee, apparently not waking him, and ran over to Ratchet.

"Damn it! She's gone!" Mikaela shouted.


	12. What I can NEVER forget

Hey guys! You know, I really had to laugh when I noticed the last couple of comments about "Elfen Lied". Truthfully, I've never heard of it, so when it was made mention in the comments I had to check it out. It really sounds like a show that I ought to watch lol. Thank you for the encouraging comments, it's always good to hear what everyone thinks about my writings! Here's the last update for the weekend! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, never have claimed to, but I DO own Project Seven!

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Sam and Mikaela were huddled nice and warm in Bumblebee's cab. Sam slowly awoke and looked over to his companion, the girl, apparently, had cuddled against him. He smiled and put an arm around her back. Before slipping back into sleep, his eyes shifted around to each Autobot before noticing that something was amiss. His eyes darted a second glance at Ratchet's Hummer form and noticed that a backseat door had been opened, but not closed. Sam shot up from the seat, which immediately shook Mikaela from her sleep as well.

"Sam? What is it?" she asked in a tired, strained voice.

Sam wasn't sure what to do at first, he just pointed towards the sleeping form of Ratchet. Mikaela looked over to where he was pointing and noticed that the medic's door was wide open. She shot up into sitting as well and the two humans bolted out of Bumblebee, apparently not waking him, and ran over to Ratchet.

"Damn it! She's gone!" Mikaela shouted.

Sam gave Ratchet's hood a good pounding until his engine revved in annoyance.

"Wake up! She's gone!" he yelled.

"What are you talking about?" Ratchet grumbled.

"Seve- Cat's gone!" Sam yelled in order to bring Ratchet completely out of recharge mode.

The medic realized what Sam was going on about and realized that his door was open, and the weight of Cat's body was gone.

"Optimus! Wake up!" Sam shouted, causing the semi truck's engine to start.

The other Autobots were shaken awake from all of the noise.

"Did either of you two see where she went?!" Optimus asked, realizing what was going on quickly.

"No! We just woke up and saw that she was gone!" Sam answered back, looking around the scrap yard.

"Autobots! Spread out!" Optimus shouted.

The group did as their commander had ordered and quickly started making dusty trails behind them as they spun their tires going off in five different directions, Bumblebee stopping to pick up Sam and Mikeala first.

Before they separated too far from each other, Ratchet used his communicator and informed the others, "I've pick the girl up on my bio-scanners! This way!" he instructed.

The group followed the medic until they came to a small business location. They pulled up behind a fenced in area and followed the fencing for a moment before coming upon Cat. Her body was lying on the ground, surrounded by a few random green apples which were strewn around her. Her eyes were facing outside the fence, her pupils dilated, her body shaking violently.

"She's seizing!" Ratchet yelled as he transformed and reached over the fence, grabbing the girl quickly.

Sam and Mikaela jumped out of Bumblebee has he and others transformed into their humanoid forms, all crowding around the girl, who was still shaking in the palm in Ratchet.

"...F..Five.. No!... Five... PLEASE... I d-didn't... I s-swear!..." Cat mumbled through her obvious nightmare.

"Five?" Ironhide asked.

"Whoever it is, she seems quite afraid of them..." Optimus replied.

"She's said that name before..." Mikaela suddenly remembered.

The group looked to her as Sam proceeded to ask, "When did she ever say _that_?"

"When she was sleeping just before we were attacked by the Decepticons. When I tried to wake her up..." Mikaela remembered.

_Mikaela and Sam were shaken away from the loud attacks. The Autobots transformed into their humanoid forms and surrounded the three humans, keeping them out of range for attack. Mikaela turned around and saw that Seven (at that point) was still seemingly asleep. Her eyes were clamped shut and her hands were digging both flesh and metal fingers into the ground, her arms and legs shivering._

_Mikaela dropped to the ground to wake the other girl._

_"Seven! Wake up!" the voice of a scared girl suddenly came into perspective._

_"Five?" Seven asked in a small voice._

_"What? No! Come on! Get up!" Mikaela shoved the girl into reality._

"I don't think that she thought I was Five, I think she was dreaming about something. It was weird, though. When she asked if I were this "Five" person, she sounded like a child. Like in a scared child's voice. Her eyes seemed different too. I thought it was weird, but of course I didn't have time to ask," Mikaela replied.

The group looked to the girl as she began to stir awake.

"Cat? Can you understand me?" Optimus asked.

Cat's eyes batted open and she sat up quickly, realizing that she was in some major trouble.

"W-What's going on?!" she asked, looking around and seeing the last place where she had thought she last was.

"We thought you'd tried taking off on us, "Sam replied, Cat looking down to him and Mikaela from Ratchet's hand.

"I-I didn't leave... I was... Attacked!" Cat looked to the Autobots and asked, "Where is she?!"

"Where is who?" Ratchet asked.

"Y-You didn't see her? W-Was I just dreaming?!" Cat asked as she looked back to the orchard and jumped from Ratchet's hand back into the area where she had been munching on the apple.

"Hey! Now wait just a-" Ratchet began to scold the girl before she interrupted.

"-I couldn't have been dreaming... I swear it... She was right _here_..." Cat said as she looked around carefully, then picked up the apple that she had taken a bite out of.

"My scanners do not indicate any other life form in the vicinity," Ratchet advised.

"So I _was_ dreaming?" Cat asked herself quietly.

"Perhaps you should explain to us what has happened. We might be able to figure this out," Optimus suggested.

Cat sighed and thought

Returning to the hidden spot behind the scrap yard, Cat began to tell her story.

"You see, I wasn't the only project. As I've told you, there were six, failing projects before me. The first and second projects were destroyed before I was even created, and the other four were being used as guinea pigs even more so than I was," Cat began.

"Hold on a minute.. Now when you say "destroyed"..." Sam began.

"The first two projects were tossed into a fire pit and cremated... alive..." Cat looked to the ground somberly.

"That's... That's just... How could they do this to other humans?!" Mikaela was obviously shocked, along with the rest of who listened.

"It's like I said before... I've never thought of myself as a human, because we weren't supposed to be treated like humans... Just test subjects..." Cat corrected her.

"Anyway... One of the projects, who was about six years older than me, Project Five, sort of became an adult figure for me. She had taken me under her wing ever since I was just a toddler, mainly right after my arm and legs were removed. It was comforting to have someone older than me around to teach me kindness, and the other things that the lab technicians weren't allowed to teach me..."

For a brief moment, both Sam and Mikaela tried to see a picture of a small child, being fitted in the same type of armored ligaments that Cat had. Neither of them could even begin to imagine why their own government would do this to their own kind.

"She basically became to me, what you would think of as an older sister. We were both cloned from the same genes so we were, essentially, twins. So if you were to imagine what she looks like, she looks exactly like me, except she was lucky enough not to have any of these false appendages..." Cat continued.

"Cloned? I thought that the government didn't permit that?" Sam asked.

"Well yes and no. They didn't permit anyone outside of their grasp, privately run companies and such, to clone. But of course there was no stopping themselves from trying it. We were born from surrogate mothers, and our lives basically went from there... Anyway, about six years ago, Five and the other projects managed to break out. Of course, Five wouldn't leave without me, so they managed to break me out as well. At that point, I was still pretty young in my abilities, and hadn't even really begun to use Alchemy. But they managed to get me out as well... We were doing pretty well until we had decided to take an elevator to the top floor of the facility. There were only supposed to be a few guards on staff, it was a weekend, so most of the lab technicians and guards weren't there. However, I believe that by trying to find me, it took the others longer than they had realized and we were ambushed on the way out..."

_The elevator doors opened and suddenly, gunfire sounded off. The other three projects jumped straight into the gunfire, as Five blocked Seven from being harmed. The sounds of gunfire started to slow as the noises of people being torn apart limb from limb could be heard, along with blood-curdling screams. Seven tugged on the back of Five's shirt in fear of what was happening just feet from them.  
_  
_Five could feel the younger girl tugging on the back of her shirt and looked back to her, "It's okay, it'll be all right," she comforted.  
_  
_The doors of the elevator closed, but it was only to be that way for a moment before Five turned to her younger sibling and said, "Listen, I'm going to go out there and check things out.."  
_  
_"Okay..." the younger girl replied as Five opened the door and slowly walked out, looking to either side.  
_  
_There were bodies all over the place. The ones that stood out the most were the ones of their dying friends. Five looked away in horror. There were random arms and legs thrown about, their friends had fought hard in such a short time. Five turned to go back to the elevator when one, single gunshot sounded. The woman lurched forward and fell to the ground, just feet away from the elevator doors. Seven looked out and saw her friend reaching for her from the ground.  
_  
_"S..Se...Seven... Help me..." she said pleadingly.  
_  
"Usually a gunshot wound wouldn't be considered much of a wound to us, but that shot had managed to hit her spinal chord, paralyzing her from the waist down... She couldn't move... And neither could I..." Cat explained as her story went on.

_"F-Five! Five I... I can't!..." Seven cowered against the back of the elevator wall, fear building up through her body.  
_  
_"Plea...Please... Seven... Help...help...me..." Five reached towards the girl as far as he could reach.  
_

"Wha-?!" Seven's eyes grew wide as the guard pulled the trigger, grazing her left arm. She jumped back just before the elevator doors closed, hearing one final gunshot.

"I blacked out after that, but later learned that Five had been killed by that last shot. The others were killed, of course. They were also non-equipted with the ligaments that I have. And I was considered too young to have been officially involved, so I was given a second chance at life... From that moment on, I decided it was either death or glory... I either made it out of there alive one day, or I would die trying... But I never gave into fear again. And it made me a better fighter. I became much stronger in every ability that I was taught... Because I could never forget what fear had done..." she finished.

The group was dangerously silent.

"Wait a minute," Sam spoke up, the group looking to him.

"If she was killed, then why is it that you think she was attacking you?" he asked.

The Autobots looked to Cat as she looked up to Sam and said, "I-I don't know why... She looked different. But it was definitely her..."

"Well then it's obvious what this is," Ratchet began, everyone wondering what he was thinking.

"It's obvious that this past traumatic event is starting to come back to you in your mind, and you're letting it control you into believing something that's not real," he explained in a very scientific sort of tone.

"She was there!" Cat replied defensively.

"Catherine, perhaps you passed out and only _thought_ that you saw her. When we came upon you, your body was seizing and you were mumbling to the woman that you spoke of. Does it not make sense that you had somehow dreamt the woman to be alive?" Optimus asked.

"I... No! It was too real!" she replied.

"A lot of people believe that their nightmares are realistic, Cat. Give it some time, you'll understand when you mull it over a little," Mikeala replied.

"No!" Cat stood up, "You just don't understand!" She turned her back to them and walked to the edge of the scrap yard fence, leaning up against it.

No one knew what to say to the girl to make her understand the idea of a dream. But as they all pondered, they heard a great rumble. No, _two_ great rumbles. Looking down to Sam and Mikaela, the two of them had red faces.

"I guess this would be a bad time to talk about food, huh?" Sam asked.

Cat turned her head to look at them in a side glance. She scoffed just before dashing off in the direction that she had disappeared to earlier.

"Hey, Wait!" Sam yelled, him and Mikaela about to get up and run after her when they were stopped by Optimus.

"Let her go. I'm sure she needs to think about this for a while," he motioned for them to remain still.

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Chapter Teaser!

_"__Seven..."_

_"No... I'm just being stupid... Ratchet was right, it was all in my head..." _She gave herself a good scolding and shrugged the noise off as soft chatter from the back of her own mind.


	13. Out and About

Hey guys! This is a REALLY big post this time around, so it'll be a few days before I post again. Just tryin' to stay ahead in my writings ;) And for some strange reason, I keep coming across the problem of Italics. If I have them in the document that I upload for some reason it either erases the italics themselves, or some of the paragraphs after them. Like I've stated in my profile, I'm still pretty new to the fanfiction site itself, even though I've written two fics. So if anyone could shed some light onto this little problem I'd greatly appreciate it!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or any other trademarked name in this fic. However I DO own Project Seven.

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"So do you guys think that she's really just dreaming about this "Five" person?" Mikaela asked.

The Autobots looked to one another.

"There could be no other possible explanation. If she says that the woman died, then it's obvious that she's having vivid nightmares about the whole incident," Ratchet shook his head, trying to understand why the girl was so adamant.

"When your dead, your dead. That's all there is to it!" Ironhide added.

As if right on cue, something hit Ironhide, smack-dab in his head. He stood up and fired up his canons, looking around to see what it was that hit him.

"What was THAT?!" he growled.

Sam and Mikaela looked to the ground where the object landed right in front of them. Mikaela picked the item up and looked to Sam with a question mark for a facial expression.

"A green apple? But-" Sam began.

"I meant to bring some of these back! Take a taste of these!" Cat reproached the group, with a few of the fruits, and threw another apple to Sam.

The two looked to each other before looking to the food and biting into them, devouring them quickly.

"I could smell these all the way from here at that Farmer's Market. They smelled better than that slop that you guys ate yesterday..." Cat explained, taking a bite out of another apple herself.

Between mouthfuls of apple, Sam asked, "Slop?!... That wasn't slop!...Haven't you ever... had one of those?"

Cat made a disgusted face and replied, "No! And by the smell of them I never _will_! These smelled fresh, so that's what I went for."

"You just don't know what's good yet!" Sam laughed.

"I don't know Sam, she seems like she's got the right idea to me," Mikaela disagreed happily as she bit into the juicy apple once again.

Cat looked up to the Autobots and said, "I didn't know what you guys eat, but you're welcome to these."

"We do not require organic foods, as you do, Catherine. But thank you," Optimus replied.

"Suit yourselves," Cat shrugged and continued eating her food.

"Now all I need is a change of clothes and a clean, shower and I'll feel _much_ better," Mikaela mentioned.

"Well that'll be a bit tricky..." Sam replied sarcastically.

"Where are we anyway?" Cat asked.

"A place called Bullhead City. Well, right outside of there anyway. It's a couple hundred miles away from where we were," Sam replied, grabbing a piece of fruit from the pile that Cat had brought back.

"A couple hundred miles?! How long was I asleep?!" Cat was shocked to learned that they had traveled so far.

"Well, you passed out around eleven in the morning, and it's, what time now Sam?" Mikaela looked to Sam.

The boy looked to his watch and said, "Just a little past midnight."

After finishing up her own piece of food, Cat yawned rather large and stretched a little. This also caused Sam and Mikaela to yawn as well.

"Perhaps your recharge cycle has yet to be complete?" Optimus asked the three.

"Yeah, I think we need to get some rest before tomorrow," Sam replied with a tired smile as he and Mikaela stood up.

Their robotic friends transformed into their alternate, car, forms and Bumblebee obliged the two teens by opening the doors and allowing them to snuggle into his seats. Cat had decided just to sit on the ground with her back to the scrap yard fence, putting on her black overcoat. She closed her eyes and listened.

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"Gentlemen, I'm pleased to introduce you to Secretary Keller," Agent Simmons announced to a group of Section Seven agents.

"No pleasantries, if you please. I'd just like to know why I was called here; and to know what you're doing to control this matter of someone managing to break through the governments defense grid, besides what it is that my own men are already doing?" Keller asked.

"Ah yes. Which brings me to the question of the person who discovered the intrusion into the networks. Would they be available for questioning?" Simmons asked.

"As I am aware, they are in our own interrogations as we speak," Keller replied.

"Oh, yes. That's right. The woman who you placed the hands of the American people in tried to divulge the information that she was given to someone who was not allowed the same access. Am I correct?" Simmons mocked.

Secretary Keller glared at the agent and replied, "Yes, well the matter is being taken care of."

"Which is why I have ordered the two to be brought here for _real_ questioning. The matter has been brought to the attention of Section Seven and-"

"Why have you brought me here, if not to insult my position regarding national security, which by the way is my job?" Keller seethed.

Simmons chuckled lightly and replied, "Yes, well. There are certain issues which need to be brought to your attention."

"And those issues would be, what, exactly?" Keller was becoming more and more annoyed with just the sound of the other mans voice.

"Come with me, sir. I'll explain on our way through our base..."

----------------------------------------------------

_"I think that's it... They're all asleep!"_ Cat's eyes shot open and she smiled, smartly, to herself as she stood.

_"I need to get a good look around here, and they'd never let me go by myself. I need to do this alone if I'm to get t he best view on things." _Cat thought to herself as she quietly left the area.

She had waited about an hour to make sure that the Autobots were clueless in recharge, and Sam and Mikaela were to be fully asleep. If any of them were to wake and see that she was gone, she would surely be sought after. She had used her sensitive hearing to listen to the noises of the Autobots slowly shut off, and the teens' breathing slow. As soon as she had thought that they were quiet in sleep, she knew it was the best time to look around.

She had not forgotten about Mikaela's interest in finding a place to clean up, so she figured that while she was out she would find just that place. Not just for Sam and Mikaela, of course. Even though she had her robotic appendages, Cat needed to clean up as much as the other two did. Especially with her new scratches, they needed to be cleaned of dirt and grime.

Cat ran off in a southerly direction, keeping sure that she remembered how to get back to the group. After running for just a few minutes at her cheetah speed, Cat came upon several blocks of residential homes. She made sure to stay within the confines in the darkness, and not to enter within the lighted areas of streetlights. By doing this, she managed to swiftly jump from rooftop to rooftop. Precision landing enabled her from keeping to make too much noise to the people below her.

_"This is great! I can really accomplish more with these new joints and hinges!" _Cat gloated happily to herself, forgetting the mission at hand, and just merrily going about her hopping.

_"Seven..."_

Cat stopped, hearing a voice suddenly from out of nowhere. Standing on the rooftop of a small residential home, she couldn't help but feel a sudden icy chill up her spine. Her head spun around, looking frantically to see if there was someone following her.

_"No... I'm just being stupid... Ratchet was right, it was all in my head..." _She gave herself a good scolding and shrugged the noise off as soft chatter from the back of her own mind.

Suddenly remembering what it was that she had come out there to do, Cat began to jump from rooftop to rooftop again, looking around for any sign of what it was she was in need for. Before too long, she heard the sound of a small truck pulling up into a driveway a few houses from where she was at. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop until she came to be one rooftop away from the house with the truck parked in the driveway. The nearest streetlight was several houses away, so Cat knew that it was dark enough to stay hidden, even when she was so close.

Waiting for just a few seconds, she saw three humans exiting the house. As well as the driver of the truck turning off the ignition and setting foot outside the truck.

"Will we have enough room for everything?" One of the male humans who had exited the house asked the other male from the truck.

"Should. I didn't pack that much myself. We're not going to be gone for long, so I'm not too worried," the driver replied.

The three who had exited the house were dragging large bags behind them, and the driver took notice.

"Good lord! It's a three day trip! Not a month-long excursion!" he shouted at a high whisper.

The two others who had exited the house appeared to be female, and one of them replied, "You should just be glad that this _is _all we've packed for a three day trip..."

The driver opened up what seemed to be a hard-top tonnaeu cover. He unlocked the cover and pushed it up, the hydraulic lifters kicking in and keeping the cover from crashing back down. Then unlocking the tailgate of the truck, the driver picked up the luggage bags one by one, and threw them in the back, closing the truck's tailgate first, then shoved down the tonnaeu cover back down over the bed.

"So what about Muffin?" The driver asked, this question totally throwing off Cat's perception of things.

"I've got my mom coming by in two days to make sure she's got food and water, but she should be fine. Cat's don't need the same looking-after as dogs you know," The second female replied.

"Yeah, okay. Let's get going already! We've got a lot of ground to cover!" The driver said sourly as he motioned for everyone in their group to climb in.

Cat ducked behind the roof a little so that the headlights of the truck wouldn't spot her as they backed out of the driveway and drove off. She looked down at the house and looked around. It was still very early in the morning so she knew that there would be hardly anyone around as she jumped to the ground behind the, now vacant, house. She looked into the back window to see that a light had been left on in the living room, probably to deter people from believing that it was empty.

Cat scoffed as she laughed to herself thinking

_"I suppose that I should look around a little more for a bit before I go back. They're probably still asleep anyway," _Cat thought to herself as she began roof-hopping once more.

As she neared the end of the block, another icy chill went up her spine.

_"Seven..." _She could clearly hear from all directions.

Cat laughed nervously to herself and said aloud, "Come on now, you're going to have to stop this at some point. You don't want anyone to think you've gone and lost your mind do you?!"

Cat continued her hopping until she jumped from a roof and before she made her precision landing she heard, "DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE ME!"

The voice startled her so much that her landing turned from precision to painful as she slipped down the steep tiles, and rolled off the two-story house, hitting the ground on her, already pained, ribs. Shooting up to a sitting position, Cat could have cared less about the fall.

"W-Who are you?!" she shouted, looking around every direction, seeing nothing but houses and darkness beyond them.

A low laugh sent Cat's body into near convulsions before lights on a garage just behind her flicked on and the sound of a door opening caught her attention.

"Who's there?! Jamie! Grab the gun!" A man's voice shouted.

Lights inside the house also flashed on quickly as Cat barely managed to get herself to stand, stumbling over herself as she tried to run. Before she made it out to the street, she came face to face with bright headlights, which were nearly blinding they were so bright. The lights belonged to a large SUV truck from what she could tell just standing in front of the lights.

"Kid! Kid come on! Get in!" a familiar voice shouted.

Cat heard the sounds of footsteps and saw figures running down the driveway from behind the house that she had fallen from.

"What are you waiting for?!" The voice from the SUV yelled once again.

Cat didn't need anymore coaxing, she rushed to the driver's side backseat and the door opened. She threw herself on the seats and the door closed, the truck's squealing tires burning some major rubber in it's wake. Cat was still, somewhat in a daze, but she slowly started to calm down as she began to understand the scolding remarks from Ironhide.

"-and if the others knew you were out this far they'd have your hide too!" his voice boomed from the radio.

Cat didn't, couldn't say anything. Her mind was still replaying what had just happened before she fell from the roof. However, It didn't take long for her to realize that she wasn't going to be able to ignore him any longer.

"-even hear me?! I know you're awake!"

"H-How'd you find me?" she asked.

Ironhide sighed and replied, "I saw you leave. Figured you'd left to expel lubricants or whatever you humans do. When you didn't come back for nearly an Earth hour, I figured something was up."

"Oh great... So the others are probably awake too aren't they?" Cat asked, sure she was going to hear it from the group this time for disappearing two times in a night.

"No, I didn't wake them. I didn't see the need to," he replied, slowing down a little after making their escape.

Cat sighed with relief and laid back down on the comfy seats, "Good..."

Ironhide recognized that the girl seemed distressed about something and he gave her a minute to settle before finally asking, "What were you doing this far out anyway?"

Cat knew that she at least had to explain why the poor Autobot had to make, yet another, rescue for the girl.

"I..uh... Well, I think I found a place for me and the other two to clean up..."

"Is _that_ the only reason you came all this way?" Ironhide was confused, humans were just too complicated.

"Well... I suppose that I that I wanted to think about things..." she said quietly.

"Don't you realize that the Decepticons are after you now?!" he asked, angered.

"I can take care of myself, _thanks_," Cat snapped back.

Ironhide growled and mumbled as they arrived back at the scrap yard, the other's still asleep to Cat's relief. As she was about to exit the truck, she pulled on the handle and realized that the doors were locked.

"What's the deal?" she asked.

"The last two times we've let our guard down you left. So just sit and wait until morning," it was obvious that he was annoyed with the girl running off.

Cat gave the truck a narrow-eyed expression and said, "You _do_ realize that I could just kick your windows out don't you?"

"You _do_ realize that I could just wake everyone up _now_ and tell them where you've been don't you?" Ironhide seethed.

Cat glared to the radio, then sighed and laid back in the seat saying, "Touché..."

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Chapter Teaser!

"Damn! _Just _when I thought I had her! She's somewhere else! Damn it!" The yellow eyes of the figure set on the fire.

"P-Please... Why do you...h-have to do that?" Lillian asked.

The bright eyes moved from the fire and narrowed at Lillian.

"That's none of your business!" The figure yelled back in a growling woman's voice.

Lillian covered her face, fearing for her life. She heard a deep sigh and then some footsteps. Hearing the woman get closer to her, she felt the ground shake just a little as she heard something drop to the ground.


	14. Muffin

Hey guys, here's another update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or any other trademarked name or item mentioned in this fic. I DO own Project Seven.

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Lillian had not slept a wink so far that night. She kept her eyes darting back and forth from a small fire that someone had built, to the figure sitting across the fire. The figure was sitting up, with their eyes closed. Just when Lillian had thought that the figure had fallen asleep, she was startled by the figure waking up. They stood quickly yelling and cursing. Lillian shrank back against the black SUV that they had gotten around in.

"Damn! _Just _when I thought I had her! She's somewhere else! Damn it!" The yellow eyes of the figure set on the fire.

"P-Please... Why do you...h-have to do that?" Lillian asked.

The bright eyes moved from the fire and narrowed at Lillian.

"That's none of your business!" The figure yelled back in a growling woman's voice.

Lillian covered her face, fearing for her life. She heard a deep sigh and then some footsteps. Hearing them get closer to her, she felt the ground shake just a little as she heard something drop to the ground.

"Here..." The other woman said as she walked back to the other side of the fire and sat back down.

Lillian looked up to see a bottle of cold water in front of her. She looked from the bottle to the figure and saw that the woman had closed her eyes once again, appearing to be in some sort of meditation. Lillian took the bottle of water and gulped it down gratefully.

_"I wonder what she meant when she said that she had lost someone that had moved somewhere else?..."_ Lillian thought to herself as she finished the water and looked up to the woman across the fire.

_"...I wonder what she plans to do with me?..."_  
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Bright and early in the morning, a man in his mid thirties was getting himself ready for work. His family had already set out on their own, the kids to school, his wife to work, and now he was walking out the door to set out on his own for the day. He walked out of the front door, closing it behind him and fumbling around with his keys, searching for the one that would lock the door. As he did this, he looked up and saw something that was rather strange in that neighborhood. A giant, blue semi-truck with flame decals was sitting in front of the house across from his. The thing nearly took up half of the street.

"Damn truckers..." he muttered to himself as he found the right key, and locked the door.

Walking to his car in the driveway, he stopped just before getting in, seeing something he _really_ had never thought he'd see in the neighborhood. A grayish Pontiac Solstice, and a two-thousand and eight Chevrolet Camaro sitting two houses down from the blue truck.

_"I wonder who owns those?!"_ he thought as he slowly got into his car, starting it up and driving away.

As the car left the street, three familiar faces poked out from two of the smaller cars. They got out slowly, trying to act inconspicuous. They walked up to a house and went straight down the driveway to the back door.

"Are you sure about this?" Mikaela asked in a whisper.

"Would you rather wait a few weeks?!" Sam asked sarcastically.

"Stop your worrying. I was here just a few hours ago, no one's home, and no one's coming to check on the place until tomorrow. As long as we're quiet we'll be okay," Cat said as she opened the storm door and put her left on the door handle gently tugging at it.

Before Cat got into the door she stopped with a gruesome thought of what was going to happen afterwards.

_"He's right! You could have been captured by the Decepticons, and we would never have known until it was too late!" Optimus scolded angrily has he pointed to Ironhide._

_"I made it back didn't I?!" Cat asked sarcastically._

_"Only because your butt was saved!" Sam pointed out._

_Cat turned and glared at the two humans who had their arms crossed and said, "You're not helping..."_

_Cat turned at the sound of Optimus giving a sigh as he said, "If we're going to do this, then we'd better take care of it now. Ratchet, Ironhide, you two stay here and work on the new arm. The rest of us will take the children," he ordered as he looked to Cat with an "And-just-so-you-know" look and said, "We're going to have to save this conversation _after_ we get back..."_

"Cat?" a hand shook her shoulder and brought her back to the present from the morning's conversation.

"W-What? Oh.. Right... Get back, I'm going to have to break it down," she ordered as the other two stood back further from the house.

Cat took a step back and brought up her right leg, holding onto the storm door so it wouldn't close on her. With just a slight kick to the right of the door handle, the door, easily broke open. Cat stood there for just a second to make sure that the sound of an alarm wasn't going to go off. She motioned for the other two to join her as she closed the storm door behind them, looking around to make sure they weren't being watched.

Walking into the kitchen area, they saw three bowls sat at the foot of one of the bottom cabinets. One was halfway full of water, the other halfway full of dried cat food, and the other bowl had -

"Oh gross! What's _that_?!" Mikaela pointed to the third bowl.

The bowl was empty of anything solid to eat, yet there were patches of a wet, red substance. Cat looked down to what Mikaela was pointing at and smelled it briefly.

"Blood... Cow blood I think..." she said in a rather questionable voice.

The other two looked to her and Sam asked, "What's a bowl of cow blood doing next to a bowl of cat food?"

"I'm not sure. I know the owner said that there was an animal they called "Muffin" here, but it was referred to as a cat. I didn't hear anything about any other animals. Here, let me through first..." Cat replied as she stepped past Sam and Mikaela, slowly looking into the living room.

"Nothing here... You two stay here while I check around the rest of the house," She motioned for them to stay while she had a look around.

"Man, I'm thirsty..." Sam said with a dry, strained voice.

Mikaela gave a laugh as she walked back into the kitchen and said, "Well, if we're going to steal water to shower, we may as well steal some food and drinks!"

Sam chuckled and watched as the girl opened the fridge door. She rooted around a minute before throwing Sam a cola and grabbing one for herself. She giggled as she was about to close the door when she froze in place and stopped what she was doing.

"Sam... Come here a minute..." she said in a surprised voice.

"What is it?" Sam asked as he walked into the kitchen.

He joined Mikaela at looking into the fridge and stopped at what he saw.

Mikaela reached in and picked up a package of cubed beef and asked, "Do you think that _this_ is what was in the bowl?"

Sam looked at the package and back to the fridge where he saw three others just like it, dripping the red substances onto the glass tray of the fridge's bottom shelf.

"No that's just... Well, I'm not sure..." he replied, scratching his head over the question.

Just then a low growl came from the living room, and the two humans jumped at the noise. They looked to see something that was _not_ your average house cat.

The eyes of a wildcat stared back at them, still growling. Mikaela jumped behind Sam, both of their heart rates spiking with fear. The gold eyes of the cat glared at the two as it slowly stepped forward.

"Shit Sam..." Mikaela's voice trembled.

"Uh... Muffin, I presume?" he asked, backing up further.

"Cat! Cat get _down_ here! We _found Muffin_!" Mikaela yelled from behind Sam.

"Nice kitty... Easy kitty... Good kitty..." Sam put his hands up trying to calm the beast down.

The cat suddenly turned towards the stairs as the sound of Catherine walking down them caught it off guard.

"Oh good, I was worried that we might have let it out for a minute there!" Cat replied to Mikaela's call as she laid eyes on the beast.

"Hello there, Muffin!" Cat said as she reached forward and pet the animal.

"Cat, no!" Sam yelled.

The girl rubbed the wildcat behind the ears as it gave a soft purr to the touch.

"What? It's just a cat!" Catherine chuckled.

"That's not your average house cat!" Sam said in a Matter-of-factly tone.

"No, it's a wildcat. They sometimes mate with house cats and get these smaller versions. I don't know why humans take them as pets but, to each his own I suppose," Cat explained as she gave the animal a good back scratching, and then stood up.

"So, who's first?" She asked.

"That'll be me!" Mikaela announced as she ran past Sam.

"The main bath is upstairs in the last room on the left," Cat told the girl as she rushed up the stairs, a door slamming in her wake.

Sam chuckled as he sat down on the couch and opened his can of soda.

Cat looked to the boy and said, "Oh good, you've found something to eat!"

"Yeah, there's stuff in the fridge. Figured while we're here we may as well just take advantage," he replied, taking a sip of the cold substance.

"Well don't get too comfortable. These people didn't exactly plan for us to be here, and I'm not turning into a common criminal," she advised.

"Yeah, sure. Should we also do the dishes while we're at it, miss "I've got to break down the door"?" Sam laughed.

Cat rolled her eyes and said, "I'm going out back to keep a lookout..."

As the girl was about the stroll out the back door that they had come through, the phone began to ring. As if trained to, Sam's hand immediately went to the phone and picked it up. As he did this, he looked up to see Cat had turned and her eyes were wide, and her mouth hanging open like an amusing cartoon character.

"What?" Sam asked as he looked at the phone in his hand, then realizing what he had just done.

The boy looked back to Cat, his eyes wide now as well. Instead of hanging up quickly, he put the phone to his ear, not saying anything.

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Chapter Teaser!

"Hey! Carl! There you are!" A young woman approached the old man, and he turned to the girl with a smirk.

"So you finally made it in to work did you, Melissa?" he asked.

"Jim told me about the mess at the Famer's Market, anything happen here?" she asked.

"Well I thought I heard someone moving around back here, but I can't seem to find anything... Guess it was just them that was hit," he replied, looking back to the piles of junk.

The girl smiled and said, "You're gettin' paranoid in your old age! Now come on, we've got some customers to take care of!"

"Yeah, sure..." The old man replied, turning back towards the main building, but not before glancing back at the junkyard, looking for any suspicious people that didn't belong.


	15. Dreamstate

Hey guys! Here's a weekend chapter update!! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any other trademarked name or item mentioned in this fic. However, I DO own Project Seven.

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_"Sam? Mikaela? Catherine? Are you there?!" _The familiar voice of Optimus shot through the earpiece of the phone.

Sam felt an enormous wave of relief roll over him as he waved to Cat, explaining that it was okay.

"Yeah, Optimus, it's me," Sam finally answered back.

_"Is everything all right? We noticed high levels of adrenaline a moment ago!" _Optimus asked.

"Yeah, everything's fine, just a little surprise waiting for us, but Cat took care of it," Sam replied, looking to the animal, who was now lounging in a cat bed, seemingly content.

"How did you get this number anyway?" Sam asked, realizing that the house wasn't exactly owned by anyone they knew.

_"The world wide web of course," _the truck replied.

"Of course... Cat? She's-" Sam was about to answer Optimus' question as he looked to the kitchen and saw Catherine waving her hands in a "Nonono!" fashion.

"She's uh... upstairs somewhere, why?" he looked back to the phone, "...Well she's around here somewhere, when she comes back downstairs I'll send her to you, okay?...Okay, bye," Sam finished the conversation and hung up the phone.

"He wants to talk to you while you have a few minutes..." Sam advised the girl.

"He probably wants to give me a big speech of some kind..." Cat replied with a sigh, heading out the back door.

"You gonna talk to him?" Sam asked.

Cat stopped at the back door and said, "No, the old man can wait. I've got enough things on my mind right now..." she replied as she walked back outside.

Sam shrugged and went back to his soda.

Cat walked out the back door and into the yard. She looked around over each of the high, brick walls to make sure that their intrusion in the neighborhood had not been taken noticed upon. Ensuring this, her mind immediately went back to the early morning hours when she had been there previously.

_"DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE ME!"_

_The voice startled her so much that her landing turned from precision to painful as she slipped down the steep tiles, and rolled off the two-story house, hitting the ground on her, already pained, ribs. Shooting up to a sitting position, Cat could have cared less about the fall._

_"W-Who are you?!" she shouted, looking around every direction, seeing nothing but houses and darkness beyond them._

Cat leaned back against the house and closed her eyes.

_"It was real... This wasn't something that my mind made up, of that much I'm sure... But I can't tell the others about it, because they'll tell me that I'm going crazy! __No, I have to keep all of this to myself... Maybe it'll go away all on it's own..." She thought to herself, looking to the scrap remains of her right arm._

_"NO!" Sam and Mikaela shouted._

_Seven was thrown back several hundred feet and skidded to a stop. She slowly stood up, her left arm cradling the scrap remains of her right arm._

Cat remembered the moment when her arm was destroyed and thought_, "I've got to rearrange my tactics a bit. Otherwise it'll be more than just my arm that gets destroyed next time..."  
_

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Walking around the large scrap yard, the owner was sure that he had heard strange noises earlier. He walked through the piles of junked cars and sheet metal, not seeing anything unusual.

"Hey! Carl! There you are!" A young woman approached the old man, and he turned to the girl with a smirk.

"So you finally made it in to work did you, Melissa?" he asked.

"Jim told me about the mess at the Farmer's Market, anything happen here?" she asked.

"Well I thought I heard someone moving around back here, but I can't seem to find anything... Guess it was just them that was hit," he replied, looking back to the piles of junk.

The girl smiled and said, "You're gettin' paranoid in your old age! Now come on, we've got some customers to take care of!"

"Yeah, sure..." The old man replied, turning back towards the main building, but not before glancing back at the junkyard, looking for any suspicious people that didn't belong.

As soon as the two humans were gone, two giant robots appeared from some of the largest piles of junk in the large area.

"I told you to stop moving around so much! Now they're getting suspicious!" Ratchet gave Ironhide a good hit on the arm before turning back to his work, collecting usable bits of sheet metal and steel.

"Just hurry up! I'm getting tired of being a lookout!" Ironhide seethed as he checked around for anyone else.

"These metals are different from the ones back home. It's almost difficult to tell what will be better to use, since this arm is going to have to be used in battle..." Ratchet said as he looked over all of the stuff in front of him.

"Well the sooner we get a new arm built, the sooner the kid can build us some new weapons of our own out of this stuff!" Ironhide said almost as if he were a kid in a candy store.

Ratchet stopped his digging and looked to the weapons specialist, "What's _that_ supposed to mean?" he asked.

"She said that she can use her Alchemy thing to build sophisticated weapons of mass destruction. And the more of those that we have, the better chances we have at defeating Megatron!" Ironhide replied, still on the lookout for any humans in the area.

"I never thought to ask her about things of that nature... Perhaps we could all collaborate with her for other things as well! She may even be able to fix armor! What an asset that could be for us in battle!" Ratchet began realizing the possibilities that their new friend could bring to them.

"Human!" Ironhide warned in a loud whisper.

The two hid once again. As soon as the human had passed them, Ratchet and Ironhide stopped what they were doing to answer an incoming transmission from Optimus.

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"Cat?" Mikaela opened the back screen door and looked to see that she was leaning against the house with her eyes closed, deep in thought.

"Hey, Cat," Mikaela got the girl to open her eyes and look to her this time as she continued, "Optimus called."

"What _is it_ with you guys and picking up a phone that doesn't belong to you?!" Cat asked sarcastically.

"Sorry, habit. He says he wants to talk to you and he knows that you're not busy. He seems pretty upset about something," she advised as she bit into some sort of food supplement bar that she had found in the cabinets.

Cat looked down at the ground and sighed heavily as she pushed off the back of the house and started towards the driveway.

"I suppose I should go and _talk_ with him now shouldn't I?"

"Well don't talk too long, I think Sam's almost done in the shower, so you can have a turn," Mikaela called out, watching the other girl walk down the driveway and out of sight.

Cat walked out to the street and crossed it, going straight to the blue semi truck with the flame decals all over it. The door automatically opened for her as she climbed in and sat down, the door closing quickly after.

"All right, I'm here, what do you want?" Cat asked in an annoyed tone.

"When you were out last night, did you encounter any other dream-states?" he asked.

Cat looked to the radio with a strange look, and asked, "Dream-states?"

"Yes, in which you saw your friend "Five"." he explained.

Cat froze for a moment and thought_ "How the hell would they have known about that?!"_

"I have just finished debriefing Ironhide about what he had seen, and he explained that when you looked to him, even with lights in your face, the pupils of your eyes were dilated like they were when we had found you earlier. This made Ratchet believe that perhaps you were experiencing another dream-state while you were awake," Optimus finished.

_"Damn them and their knowledge..." _Cat thought to herself.

"Well that's not what happened, so I don't know what he's talking about..." she lied again, looking back to the house.

"Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what happened then?" Optimus asked, knowing full well that the girl wasn't completely giving them the full story.

"I already told you what happened... I went to look around for a bit on my own to think, found this place, then on my way back, I slipped on the roof of a house, fell, and that's when Ironhide picked me up..." Cat replied.

"And you encountered nothing unusual along the way?" Optimus asked.

"No, nothing unusual..." Cat replied.

There was a brief silence before Mikaela knocked on the door, Cat watched as the window rolled itself down.

"Hey, go ahead. Sam's done," she advised.

"Thanks, I will," she replied.

"Anything else?" Cat asked, eager to be relieved of being asked so many questions.

Optimus sighed and opened the door, allowing the woman to climb down and head back into the house.

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Chapter Teaser!

The yellow-eyed woman grumbled and cursed under her breath for a moment before she finally answered.

"Bullhead city..." she growled.

"Bullhead city? What do you want there?" Lillian asked, almost afraid that if she asked too many questions, she'd end up being killed.

There was no answer.

"Come on, Seven! You couldn't possibly tell me that -" Lillian yelled before she was cut off.

"I'M NOT SEVEN!" the angry driver shouted behind her.


	16. Only a moment to breathe

Hey guys! Thank you all for your comments and suggestions! As always, I hope this next installment is to your liking! So Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or any other trademarked item mentioned in this fic! However, I DO own Project Seven!!

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"W-Where are we heading?" Lillian asked.

The Seven look-a-like had tied her up so that she could run away, and tied a cloth around her eyes. Even being in such circumstances, she couldn't wait any longer to know what this girl had planned.

The yellow-eyed woman grumbled and cursed under her breath for a moment before she finally answered.

"Bullhead city..." she growled.

"Bullhead city? What do you want there?" Lillian asked, almost afraid that if she asked too many questions, she'd end up being killed.

There was no answer.

"Come on, Seven! You couldn't possibly tell me that -" Lillian yelled before she was cut off.

"I'M NOT SEVEN!" the angry driver shouted behind her.

Lillian held fast from saying anything to quickly, but soon decided that she had to ask.

"If you're not Seven... Then who could you possibly be?!" she asked.

The SUV suddenly skidded to a stop on the side of the freeway, Lillian almost rolling into the back of the front seats. She could hear someone moving around in the front seat, as if turning to face her.

"First I have to know something... What the hell made you people think that creating us was a good idea?" the woman asked in an oddly calm tone.

Lillian didn't answer at first, because she had, for quite sometime now, known that it was a horrible mistake to treat human life as guinea pigs.

"We were wrong..." she said softly.

The driver was momentarily quiet.

"We were wrong to believe that humans could be _used_... We were creating the projects for the soul purpose of having the upper hand against our enemies, but we were only creating people who would grow to see us as their only enemies... We wanted safety for our country, but what we didn't realize is that we were creating citizens and not giving any consideration for their own safety... We hadn't fully understood what would happen when the projects grew up and had minds of their own... We thought that all of them would comply with us if we only showed them what we taught them... We were wrong..." she finished.

There was still a brief silence before Lillian heard the driver turn back around and the car begin to pick up speed.

"My name is Eight..."

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"I'm telling you! You should have heard it! She sounded awful..." Mikaela explained over a large soda at a small diner.

"Mikaela, she dislocated her shoulder and didn't make hardly any noise at all when Ratchet fixed it," Sam replied, taking a giant bite out of a greasy hamburger.

"Yeah, well you should have heard her back there!... I offered to help, because of those wires on her scrapped arm, but she said that she had deactivated them so they wouldn't fry her... I bet that hot water stung the hell out of her back when it hit all of those deep cuts and scratches..." Mikaela replied back, looking a cross the street from the diner.

Cat had decided to see what she could find to cover herself up better besides the most obvious black coat that was given to her. Her clothes were practically in rags, so she needed to find better cover. Bumblebee had stayed to watch Sam and Mikaela while Optimus and Jazz made sure to follow Cat's every movements.

The woman couldn't help but feel somewhat cornered as she looked outside of the clothing store and saw a giant semi truck and Pontiac Solstice positioned just in front of the store.

_"Smooth guys... Real smooth..." _Cat thought, mildly amused, as she looked through hangers of clothing.

"Hi, may I... help you?" an older woman walked around the clothing displays, hearing some movement on the other side and when she saw Cat standing in front of her in the long overcoat with one arm, and two metal feet. Needless to say she was rather startled.

"It's uh... It's a costume and... No thanks... Just looking," Cat replied, going back to looking for something comfortable.

The woman was about to walk away but she decided to find out what this character's demeanor was and she turned back to the girl.

"Looking for something for the boyfriend?" she asked with a smug grin and a raised eyebrow.

Cat's face turned a bit red as she shook her head.

"I know!" the old woman clapped her hands together, startling Cat, and continued, "Let me guess, something in the _low riding_ type?"

Cat shook her head again thinking

"No..." Cat replied, looking back through the clothing in front of her.

"Well, what _exactly_ are you looking for?" the old woman crossed her arms.

"...Functionality I suppose," Cat replied with a shrug.

"Fun..Functionality... Okay! We can do that! How about something in denim?" the old woman pulled different things off of the shelf, as Cat felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

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"What do you mean, _exactly_ when you say that you can't finish the arm?!" Ironhide asked angrily.

"The Human nervous system is delicate! I'd have to have Catherine here to look over the structures that they had made to connect the arm properly! Until then, there's not much more I can do!" Ratchet prattled as he stared at the unfinished product.

Even as large as the scrapyard was, Ratchet only managed to pull together scraps of steel and cast iron, which would be strong enough for now, until they found something much stronger.

_"We're outside of a clothing store right now, waiting for Catherine to finish finding some new apparel to wear. Bumblebee, how is everything with Sam and Mikaela?" _Optimus chirped in over long-range communications.

_"Everything's "A" okay over here partna'!" _Bumblebee replied, using his radio communications of a used car salesman ad.

_"Good. As soon as Catherine is done here, we'll be on our way back," _Optimus replied.

"Optimus, has the girl mentioned anything about what may have happened to her last night?" Ratchet asked.

_"...Nothing more than she has already told us," _he replied in a grumble.

"I know what I saw, Optimus! Her eyes were the same way that they had been when she had gone into convulsions earlier! I don't even think that she could understand half of what I said when I first came upon her!" Ironhide seethed.

_"I do not doubt you, Ironhide. But I think it will take some time before the girl trusts us completely yet," _Optimus reasoned.

Ratchet sighed and said, "Just be quick, Optimus. I want to get this done and over with as fast as possible so we can get back to looking for the Allspark."

_"And no one knows that feeling better than myself, old friend," _Optimus replied disconnecting his communications for the moment.

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Sam and Mikaela had made a small disturbance with their laughter, as they talked about some of the more humorous things that had happened in the past few days.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever get over Bee "lubricating" on Simmons!" Sam laughed.

They both burst out laughing causing some heads to turn.

As the two tried and quieted down a bit, the door to the diner opened quickly and the form of Cat walked in, looking directly towards the two. She walked in and quickly sat down in the booth across from them.

"Hey Cat," Sam greeted.

"Hey..." Cat replied.

"Did you find any good to wear?" Mikaela asked.

"I managed to find some things like I had before. They'll do for now. You wouldn't _believe_ how badly the people here hassle you to buy every item of clothing they have!" Cat replied, sinking into her seat with a deep sigh.

"Which is why I don't shop much..." Sam replied with a nod in agreement.

Mikaela rolled her eyes at Sam and before she could say anything, she heard the noise of a loud sneeze. Looking to Cat, the two humans watched as she sneezed loudly, two more times.

"You pick up a cold?" Mikaela asked.

"Also a reason I don't shop much..." Sam added.

"It's impossible... Must have been some random reaction to something..." Cat replied as she blew her nose with a napkin.

"What's impossible?" Sam asked.

"I don't _get_ colds..." Cat said as she sneezed one last time.

"Well call me crazy, but it sounds like you've got a cold," Mikaela pointed out.

"I. Don't. Get. Sick..." Cat put her foot down on the matter.

"Hey, you look like you could use some sugar," Mikaela decided to drop the subject, passing something across the table to Cat, "Here, try this."

Cat looked over it with a raised eyebrow.

"What _is _it?" she asked.

"It's chocolate cake. Try it!" Mikaela insisted, passing a fork to her as well.

Cat picked up the fork and stared down at the confectionary in front of her as though she were afraid to try it.

"Come on Cat, it's good stuff," Sam encouraged.

The girl cut into the dessert and brought the bite up to her face. She shrugged and took the bite, her taste buds seemed to be overwhelmed with the new flavor. Her eyes widened and a small smile formed at the corner of her mouth.

"Oh this is too good! A girl's first taste of chocolate is too good not to take a picture of!" Mikaela laughed as she pulled out her camera phone.

Mikaela tried to access the camera function and her face went from a smile to a frown.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked.

"I can't get anything to work on this... There are some weird little lights flashing that I've never seen before..." she replied, still trying her hand at punching in numbers.

"Maybe the battery is dead?" Sam asked, leaning over to get a closer look at the device.

While the two were trying to figure out the phone, Cat looked outside the window as a darkness seemed to cover the street quickly. She looked up to a tall building across the street and dropped the fork.

"Uhh, guys?" she started, pointing to the building.

Sam and Mikaela both turned to the window, seeing what Cat was pointing to.

"Sam..." Mikaela grabbed his arm.

"Yeah... They're back all right..." he answered as the three got up and scrambled out of the diner.

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Chapter Teaser!

"...Run!... Get you and Sam... Away from...here!" she gritted through her teeth.

The Decepticon laughed as he reached over the side and grabbed onto Cat, holding her tightly within his grasp. 

Mikaela figured that Cat was putting up an act to give her time to get away. She quickly put Sam, sitting up, against the wall, put her back to him and pulled his arms over her shoulders, hoisting him up onto her back. She looked back to see the Decepticon jumping away, still laughing, holding Cat so tightly that she almost couldn't breathe.


	17. Taken for Torture

Hey guys! As always, thank you for the kind reviews, it's always much appreciated to know what everyone has to say about my writings! I know you're all waiting for another battle scene, so here it is! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or any other trademarked name or item mentioned in this fic. But I DO claim soul ownership over Project Seven!

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Just as they stepped outside, the three humans saw Optimus and Jazz pull up and transform, as well as Bumblebee, who had been watching the humans with amusement as he watched them smile and laugh just a few moments earlier, also transformed.

They all looked to the taller building and saw StarScream, looming over them with a taunting grin, and two other Decepticons standing at his side. The townsfolk began to run and scream, getting away from the area as fast as possible.

Optimus turned to the three humans and said, "Hurry and find shelter!"

Sam and Mikaela ran back into the diner as Cat ran out into the middle of the street.

"You must run, too, Catherine!" Optimus warned.

"I want to help!" she replied, staring up at the three giant robots in front of them.

StarScream jumped down to the ground, the three Autobots moving quickly as Jazz grabbed Cat and jumped out of the way.

"We don't have time for this!" Jazz said angrily as he put Cat down on the ground and gently scooted her away.

The familiar face of Barricade jumped down from the building and was about to hit Jazz with a blow to the back as Cat jumped from the ground and gave the Decepticon a kick in the chest plate, sending him in the direction of Bumblebee. Cat landed on the ground next to the stunned Jazz and looked up at him.

"You're right, I _don't_ have time to sit here and argue with you about what I'm capable of! I know what I can do so just back off!" she scorned.

StarScream stared at the scene of Cat giving a kick to Barricade and said with a smirk, "Yes, I've heard tales of this woman and her fighting abilities. Let's have at it, shall we?!"

StarScream was about to run to the girl when he was stopped by Optimus shoving him to the ground, hard.

"You better just pay attention to your _own_ problems, StarScream!" Optimus snarled as he stomped on the ground where the Decepticon was laying, causing the enemy to roll over several times until he could get to his feet again.

The third Decepticon, Bonecrusher, jumped down from the building and began firing off rounds at Jazz, who took a few hits, but countered the firing with some quick-thinking leaps, striking the enemy down with a strong punch.

Cat looked back to where Barricade had been thrown to, not wanting to keep any of the enemies out of her line of sight. She saw that the Decepticon had Bumblebee pinned down, giving him hard punches to the chest plate.

"Bee!" Cat ran to the two fighters and with a hard kick, managed to knock Barricade off of her Autobot friend.

Bumblebee stood quickly, standing side-by-side with Catherine, both in a fighting stance. They both looked to each other and nodded, Bumblebee shooting off his canons as Cat jumped from one side of the road to the other, using the buildings as points to jump off from. Barricade tried to swiftly avoid Bumblebee's shots, but was hit once or twice in the right leg, causing him to be knocked off balance. Cat made one last jump off of the side of a building and pushed the momentum that flowed through her body as she turned around in the air and struck Barricade in the face, knocking him temporarily offline.

Cat landed on the ground and turned, giving Bumblebee a smirk. Bumblebee nodded as he turned towards the other two.

Cat turned her attention to where Sam and Mikaela had fled, and ran to the front of the diner, which some of the windows had been shattered due to the

"Sam!? Mikaela?!" she yelled as she looked into the restaurant, seeing nothing. Not even a single unidentifiable human was seen.

Cat looked back to see that the Autobots were in good shape, battle-wise and she jumped into the diner through one of the broken windows.

"Sam? Mikaela?" she asked again as she looked around, walking through the dining room.

She got to the back of the room before she noticed that a storage room door was slightly open. Cat hoped that they had run through there and followed the path that the two had left for her. She opened the door and ran into the darkened room, seeing another door that had been left cracked open with a glimmer of light through the crack. As soon as she opened the door, she saw three trash dumpsters overturned, one, just a little farther beyond that, still upright.

"Guys! You here?!" Cat yelled down the alley.

"Cat!" Mikaela's strained voice could be heard, "Cat, help!"

Beginning to run down the alley, Cat came upon the upright dumpster and could hear sobbing from behind it. She quickly looked behind it and saw Mikaela, tears streaming down her face, holding an unconscious Sam in her arms.

Cat gasped and ran to the two, looking over Sam.

"What happened?!" she asked.

"We ran out of the diner!... There was a Decepticon back here too!..." the girl squeaked out between sobs, "It almost knocked me into the wall, but... Sam pushed me out of the way... and..." she cried.

Cat leaned over the boy checking the bleeding from his head.

"He's fine, just a concussion. Nothing broken I don't think..." she said as she looked back up around their environment.

"Where'd the Decepticon go?" Cat asked.

Mikaela shrugged, not being able to communicate a verbal answer.

They heard some sharp "BOOMS" and the ground rumbled for a moment. Mikaela looked up and screamed, pointing behind Cat, who looked behind her to see an unrecognizable robot standing on the roof of the shopping complexes.

_"Decepticon! Must be, since I haven't seen him yet!" _Cat thought as she turned around and jumped to the top of the dumpster's covering, hoping to lure the things attention away from Sam and Mikaela.

"Hello there!" it said in a jeering voice, "I've been ordered to take you back to StarScream!"

The robot reached down to grab Cat but she managed to jump quickly from off of the dumpster, jumping to the top of the Decepticon's head and jumped from there to the top of one of the buildings. The robot peered up at the girl as it turned and jumped up as well, following her. She ran quickly but was knocked another direction by the quick-handed skill of the enemy behind her, nearly throwing her off of the flat roof of the shopping complexes.

"Cat!" Mikaela yelled as she watched her friend hang off of the side of a four-story building.

Cat looked down to Mikaela, holding on with her weaker, human arm, barely able to hold on for too much longer.

"...Run!... Get you and Sam... Away from...here!" she gritted through her teeth.

The Decepticon laughed as he reached over the side and grabbed onto Cat, holding her tightly within his grasp.

Mikaela figured that Cat was putting up an act to give her time to get away. She quickly put Sam, sitting up, against the wall, put her back to him and pulled his arms over her shoulders, hoisting him up onto her back. She looked back to see the Decepticon jumping away, still laughing, holding Cat so tightly that she almost couldn't breathe.

Mikaela ran with Sam on her back, until she reached the front of the diner. She looked around and saw that down the street the Autobots were battling with the Decepticons, the battle not looking, at all, good. She put Sam down carefully on the ground sitting up against the building and ran back to the back.

"Cat?!" she yelled, seeing nothing, not even the Decepticon that had taken her.

_"Hasn't she gotten away by now?!" _She thought as she looked around for any sign of their friend.

The ground shaking and rumbling interrupted the girls thoughts as she shakily ran back to the front of the diner. The noises were, apparently, from the sounds of Ratchet and Ironhide arriving at the scene. Ratchet was already looking over Sam, Ironhide set his optics to Mikaela as she ran to them.

"What happened?!" Ratchet asked.

"We were... attacked! Sam... took a hit for me!..." she started to sob once again.

"He'll be fine, just a little concussion..." Ratchet declared as he overlooked the boy.

Ironhide ran off to fight with the others, Ratchet about to do so as well as he looked to the scene in front of him but then looked quickly back to Mikaela and Sam.

"Where's Cat?!" he asked.

Mikaela looked back to the diner and sobbed even harder, then looked back to Ratchet and cried, "Decepticon got her... Took her away!" she pointed behind the restaurant.

Ratchet's optics widened as he turned his cranial unit back to the fight and turned on his verbal communicators.

_"Optimus! We have a breech!" he yelled in their native language._

"Kind of busy here Ratchet!...What's the problem!" Optimus asked.

"The Decepticons have captured Catherine!" Ratchet yelled over the communications relay

Optimus kicked StarScream away and looked up to the others with wide optics. He looked back to StarScream and yelled, "Where have you taken her, StarScream?!"

The other's, having a moment to ponder, looked back to Optimus.

"Took who, Optimus?" Jazz asked, knocking Bonecrusher to the ground.

StarScream gave a taunting look about him. The smirk so wide and menacing that the Autobots grimaced. They knew who it was.

StarScream went over his communications relay and said aloud, "Blackout, this is StarScream!"

An audible voice shouted from the communications relay so that everyone around StarScream could listen in.

"Blackout here! I've got the girl, sir!" a voice replied.

The Autobots tensed up as they gained intensity in their anger.

"Have you managed to get any information out of her?" StarScream asked, nearly laughing.

"No sir! She refuses to say _anything_ at all with the location of the Allspark!" Blackout replied.

StarScream's smile went a little dim hearing this.

"Have you shown her the reasons not to lie to us?!" he asked, somewhat angered by the lack of answers.

"Yes sir, I have! I've practically broken every bone in the portions of her body that are human, and she _still_ won't say anything! She hasn't even made a scream from the pain of my attacks!" Blackout replied, sounding frustrated.

"She doesn't know where the Allspark is!" Optimus yelled, getting ready to attack StarScream over the punishment that they were making the human endure.

"Oh? Is that so?" StarScream asked, his eyes narrowing, Blackout still remaining silent to listen for his commanders next order.

"She has seen it before, but she doesn't know where that was!" Optimus replied.

StarScream looked away for a moment to think and then lifted his head high with a wide, evil grin.

"Blackout..." he said quietly.

"Still here, sir!" the Decepticon replied.

"...Kill her..." StarScream said as he lashed forward at Optimus, the others following in suit.  
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Chapter Teaser!

"I'm afraid the news isn't good..." the medic replied, his facial expressions looking grim.

Mikaela didn't need an answer, her mind already knew what he was trying to say.

"Cat..." she said softly.

"Wait... What was that?!" Ratchet asked, looking back to the fighting just down the road from them.

The fighting stopped briefly, and there, in the middle of the road, stood a figure that seemed familiar.

Ratchet looked down to the girl with wide optics and an astonished face.

"It couldn't be her..." he said strangely.


	18. Searching for Cat

Hey guys! Thank you all so much for your encouraging reviews! It does me spark good to know that my writings are well liked sniffle. Well here's the next update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own TF, or any other trademarked item mentioned in this fic. But I DO own Project Seven, so back off! Mine!!!

P.S. By the way, I may not update over the weekend, or I may only update once because of a busy schedule.

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Down the street just a ways, Ratchet looked back to Mikaela, unsure of what to tell her.

"What!? What is it?!" she asked, knowing that kind of look on a giant alien robot's face couldn't be a good sign.

"I'm afraid the news isn't good..." the medic replied, his facial expressions looking grim.

Mikaela didn't need an answer, her mind already knew what he was trying to say.

"Cat..." she said softly.

"Wait... What was that?!" Ratchet asked, looking back to the fighting just down the road from them.

The fighting stopped briefly, and there, in the middle of the road, stood a figure that seemed familiar.

Ratchet looked down to the girl with wide optics and an astonished face.

"It couldn't be her..." he said strangely.

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Optimus and StarScream had managed to land several good hits on each other, causing minimal damage, until StarScream was knocked away and skidded against the ground. As he came to a stop, he saw an image of the ground, and human feet just inches away from his optics.

"It can't be..." Jazz stood quiet as the Autobots and the Decepticons all stopped their fighting, once again, looking to what was in front of StarScream.

A girl... A girl that looked nearly _exactly _like her... She stood with flesh arms and legs, wearing denim shorts and a white t-shirt. Her brunette hair tied back, and her yellow eyes stared up at everyone around her. Her hand went to her hip as she gave a half smile.

"What's _wrong_?" she finally asked.

No answer.

"Are any of you disturbed by my being here?" she asked as she looked down to StarScream, who was wondering how it was possible that the girl was standing in front of him, and not dead.

"And what about you, Tin Man?" she asked as she gave a slight kick under the Decepticon's chin.

StarScream stood up quickly and shouted, "If you can't stay dead by Blackout, then I'll just have to take care of you myself!" he brought a hand down upon the girl, about to smash her like an insect.

The girl just smiled as the giant fist smashed the ground.

"NO!" The Autobots yelled in unison.

StarScream didn't know why, but he knew that something had gone wrong... very wrong... he lifted his fist up slowly, only to reveal that the girl was standing the same way she had been before.

"But... But that's impossible! No human can move that fast!" StarScream shouted, suddenly feeling nervous.

The girl suddenly looked up to the Decepticon and her face went from the half smile to a frown, and a lowering of her eyebrows.

"Well that would be the problem wouldn't it?" she asked, confusing everyone around her.

"Because I don't consider myself HUMAN!" the girl shouted as she shot off the ground.

Before anyone had known that it happened, the girl had landed a hard punch to the face on StarScream, knocking his cranial unit clean off his shoulders. The unit skidded several hundred feet, hitting Ratchet's feet lightly as it came to a stop.

Ratchet and Mikaela stared at the head as it's jaw moved slightly, just before the light in the Decepticon's optics faded and shorted out.

"Wha-What is _that_?! Mikaela shouted as she took a few steps back, her hands over her nose and mouth in a gasping shock.

Ratchet wasn't sure he could answer, he just looked up in surprised back at what was happening in front of them.

The woman was grinning wildly from atop the shoulders of the remaining heap, which was formerly known as Starscream.

"Now... For the rest of you..." she turned to the other Decepticons as she jumped from the body, causing it to fall back the other direction from her.

The other Decepticons frantically scrambled around, picking up StarScreams' remains. The girl stood silently still as she watched them transform and go to StarScreams' head, Bonecrusher growling at Ratchet as the medic moved out of the way quickly, watching the head being picked up, and the newly online Barricade transforming as well, screeching out of the vicinity as quickly as possible. Ratchet turned back to the other end of the street, watching to see what else was happening.

Optimus and the others stared down at the "new" Cat. They couldn't help but ask.

"Have you been... fixed?" Optimus asked.

The yellow-eyed girl stared up at him with her smile, still lingering on her face. She walked forward towards them and stopped at Optimus' feet.

"Good lord... There are _more_ of them?!" another woman's voice chimed in from behind a nearby building as she stepped out. She looked of a woman close to her early forties, her own messy, long brunette hair sticking to the sides of her face from sweating.

"I see you have escaped!" the Cat look-a-like stated in a cheerful tone.

"I've... only ever seen the one that we held in our facilities... I didn't know that there would be more..." Lillian replied, astonished.

The four Autobots standing before the two humans looked to one another, confused and unsure of what to think about what was going on.

"That ain't her!" Jazz stated.

"I'm having some disbeliefs as well..." Optimus replied.

"Wait o' minute! Did that other human just say something about seeing the _"other" _one?" Ironhide asked.

The other's came to realization as well as they focused on the other woman.

"Who are you?" Optimus demanded.

"She's no one, at the moment!" The yellow-eyed girl growled as she frowned and walked forward.

"_First_ and foremost, where's Seven?!" she asked, now seemingly getting angry.

"But... aren't you... aren't you her?!" Bumblebee strained, as much in shock as anyone else.

The girl looked down to the ground with her eyes closed.

"I'll ask you one more time, and then I'm going to start tearing off your ligaments!" she snarled.

"She was taken!" Ratchet yelled, approaching the group, Mikaela in one hand, and a waking Sam in the other.

Bumblebee rushed to see Sam looking up at him tiredly.

"He's fine, Bee..." Ratchet looked to the panicking Autobot.

"What was it that you just said?!" the yellow-eyed woman stared up at Ratchet with an intense glare.

Ratchet looked to the girl and quickly scanned her with his optics, knowing he had very little time to reply.

"Indeed, you look like her... But you two are nothing alike," he said with a fascinated voice.

"I'm running out of patience!" the girl shouted.

"Yes, of course. Blackout has taken Catherine a few miles due West of here... But I doubt that you have any time to save her..." he replied grimly.

The woman scoffed and said, "I'm not _here_ to _save anyone_!"

She jumped up from where she was and began to run in the direction that Ratchet had directed her in.

"Who _is_ that?!" Mikaela yelled from the palm of Ratchet.

"I'm afraid that I have to explain..." Lillian began.

The Autobots and the two humans looked to her as she continued, "You see... Even though I was apart of the "projects"... Even I didn't know anything about this particular girl..."

"Wait!" Mikaela yelled in frustration, "Shouldn't _we_ be going to find Cat too?!"

"Let's go!" Optimus snapped to attention and they all transformed, Sam being helped by Mikaela into Bumblebee's car cabin, then she jumped in herself.

Optimus opened the passenger side door to Lillian and said, "

"Might I ask who you are?" Optimus asked, the others listening in.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. My name is Lillian..." she replied.

"Lillian, did you mention that you worked at the lab where Catherine was held?" Optimus asked.

"Catherine?" Lillian was confused.

"She once went by the designation of "Seven"," he explained.

"She renamed herself?" Lillian asked.

"Sam and I renamed her, actually," Mikaela spat.

"I'm sorry, but who _are_ all of you?" Lillian was just as confused as the Autobots were about who, what, where and when.

"We can have introductions at a later time, right now we have some questions for you about Catherine, and the location of your lab," Optimus replied.

"Okay... sure," Lillian replied.

"What is it that you-" he was interrupted.

"What the hell gave you right to lock her up and treat her like an animal?!" Mikaela asked, obviously angered.

The rest of them would have tried to calm the girl, but they were wondering the same thing. There was silence all around, and Optimus suddenly noticed that this question bothered the woman as much as it did the rest of them.

"Perhaps this is not the time to-" the poor Autobot leader was once again interrupted.

"No... I'm... I'm sorry for what has happened to her... But there's a lot that you couldn't possibly understand about why-"

"Why she had to feel like she wasn't even human?!" Sam cut the woman off, slowly coming to realization of what was going on around him, just with a major headache.

Silence.

"Look," Lillian began, the others listening intensely," If you want to know what I was thinking when I first started that job, then I'll give you what you want to hear... But right now, I'm more worried about what's happening to her right _now_..."

"Agreed," Optimus finally got a word in as they sped off to where Cat was being held.

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Thrown against the ground for, what seemed to be, the tenth time, Cat could barely move her upper body. Her breathing was sharp and rapid, and she refused to say a word. She may have had a chance to get away at one point, but her main focus was not to lead this giant back to where he could harm anyone else. She knew that her body could survive a harsh beating, so she wasn't worried.

"I'm only going to ask once more, and then I'm going to get serious..." The low toned voice of the Decepticon was growing more and more agitated with the girl's unwillingness to cooperate.

"Where is the Allspark, and where is Megatron?!" he asked fiercely.

Cat remained silent. She wasn't about to talk to a captor.

_"If I had my other arm, this guy would be a toaster by now..."_ Cat thought amusingly to herself.

Hearing a soft giggle from the girl, Blackout's temper rose as he thrashed his hands on the ground, causing a small rumble.

"What are you laughing about?! I don't see how someone in your position could possibly see anything humorous here! You're going to learn, quickly, that-" and then he stopped and snapped to attention.

"Blackout here! I've got the girl, sir!" he suddenly spoke aloud

"No sir! She refuses to say _anything_ at all with the location of the Allspark!" he said frustrated.

_"He's talking to his commander... That must be that "StarScream" that the Autobots kept speaking of... I'll be sure to turn _him_ into a coffeemaker to go along with that nice toaster..."_ Cat continued to giggle to herself.

"Yes sir, I have! I've practically broken every bone in the portions of her body that are human, and she _still_ won't say anything! She hasn't even made a scream from the pain of my attacks!"

Suddenly, Blackout's cranial unit turned towards Cat ever so slowly, a grim smile upon his face.

_"Uh oh... That can't be good..." _Cat's giggling stopped, and she suddenly realized that things had gone from bad, to worse.

"So, you don't know the location after all?" Blackout strode towards the girl and leaned down to her.

"If you don't know the locations of the Allspark and Megatron, then you are of no use to us!" he taunted.

Cat stopped amusing herself with the ideas of turning these guys into kitchen-ware, and suddenly realized that she was going to have to move. It was going to take everything she had.

"Now that you have nothing we want, I've got nothing else to do with you except dispose of you!" he said as he reached down to grab her.

_"Now!"_ Cat told herself as she pushed up off of the ground with all of her willpower. Her legs were somewhat damaged but she managed to jump out of the way of the Decepticons grasp.

"Are you unwilling, even to die?!" Blackout asked as he stood and quickly batted at the girl, missing her by mere centimeters.

Cat jumped to Blackout, landing on the top of his head, then jumping off quickly, looking back to see that he had fallen for her little trick and smacked himself like a human swatting a fly. She laughed, followed by a strong coughing fit as she landed on the ground. The fit gave Blackout just enough time to grab her, tightening his grip on her enough so that she couldn't breath at all.

"Make a fool out of _me_ will you?!" he seethed as his red optics narrowed at her.

Cat wanted so bad to make a snide remark to his question, but she didn't have the lung capacity to even breathe at the moment. She could feel blood rushing to her head, and her bones begin to crack within her torso. Her lungs felt as though they weren't even there anymore as she tried to gasp for air, bringing nothing in. Her world was about to turn into blackness when she felt a release and dropped to the ground like a rag-doll.

"Blackout here!...What?!" he had turned his back to the girl for a moment but turned back to her as he spoke over his communications network.

"But I... Fine! I'm on my way!" he sighed as he leaned over Cat, who was gasping and coughing.

"You'd be better hope that you die right now... Because if we meet later, I won't be so nice..." he said as he transformed and rode off, leaving a large amount of dust in his wake.

Cat coughed more and more, her stomach lurching beyond her control.

_"The next time we meet, " _Cat thought darkly to herself_, "You're toast..."_

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"If I was here to take her, I'd have brought more than just _myself_ now wouldn't I?!" Lillian yelled over the communications network that the Autobots were chatting on while searching for Catherine.

"Maybe you have more people waiting for you not too far behind! How are we supposed to believe you?!" Mikaela spat back, the two having been arguing ever since the beginning of the search.

"If you don't believe me, that's fine! But when we find Seven, why don't you _ask_ her who helped her _escape_?!" Lillian was tired of the circles that they were going in.

"You... You're the one who helped her escape?" Sam asked.

Lillian sighed and in a quiet voice she replied, "Well she did most of the work, I just managed to get her away from the facility. I dropped her off in Los Angeles... knowing that even though I was setting her free, she wasn't going to live for very long anyway..."

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Chapter Teaser!

"Someone on a _very_ high level created her... This may or may not be a good thing, depending on if what she said was true..." Lillian replied, thinking deeply.

"What did she say?" Sam asked.

"Well she claimed that she didn't come here to save Seven, yet she went to her aid... Perhaps her intentions aren't as pure as I originally thought they were," Lillian replied.

"Okay, what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Mikaela asked.

"It means she very well could have come here with the intentions to kill Seven _herself_..." Lillian replied with a cringe.


	19. To Save a Dying Cat

Hey guys! I know I said that I would try and put up a posting over the weekend but a busy schedule never allowed for it. So here's my next update! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own TF blah blah blah you all know where this is going... blah blah blah I OWN project seven

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Cat laid on the ground for a moment after her lungs had regained the strength to breathe normally, and she looked up into the bright sky, the sun beginning to singe her skin.

_"Maybe this really _is _it for me after all..."_ Cat thought gloomily.

While her mind began to come to terms with the idea of death, she realized that the others were still fighting back in town.

_"I've... I've got to get to them!"_ she realized as she moved her tired body, willing it to comply with the need to fight.

Not too long after trying her initial movements, Cat laid back and her body relaxed.

"Maybe it's time that I finally let go... Let go of the past... of my life..." she closed her eyes, feeling the darkness edge into her mind, willing it to take her away forever. She could feel herself slip away, her body tingling with pins and needles as she begged for the unknown force to take her away forever.

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This surprised the group and Mikaela asked, "What exactly do you mean, that she wasn't going to live for very long?"

Lillian looked up to Optimus' radio unit and replied, "I would be surprised if you hadn't noticed any symptoms of her being ill in some way... Have you?" she asked.

"None that we're aware of, "Ratchet replied in a matter-of-factly voice.

"Well... That's not totally true..." Mikaela added, looking to Sam, who was searching in his mind of what she could have been talking about.

"When was she ever ill?!" Ratchet asked, wondering when he could have possibly missed that.

"When she met us in the diner a while ago..." Mikaela replied, still looking to Sam who now realized what it was that she was talking about.

"Oh right! Yeah, she... she sneezed a few times. When we asked if she was getting a cold she was adamant about the fact that she-" Sam was cut off.

"Can't get sick..." Lillian finished Sam's sentence, "Yes, that's right. We designed the projects to have an evolving immune system all on their own. When they would come in contact with a viral illness, their bodies automatically grow immune to it... So she was probably disturbed about the fact that she was sick with _anything_ at all..."

"Wait a minute, why could the sign of a cold mean that she's in some sort of danger?" Sam asked, confused, "I mean, everyone gets sick at some point, she's only human! Surely there's just some sort of "hiccup" in her immune system that will fight this off later, right?"

"It was the fatal flaw in the cloning process. No clone has ever survived a normal lifespan. Which is why the government banned cloning by private companies. Sooner, rather than later, in life... they just... die... Which is why we created one project after the next. Each one showed signs of illness at early stages. We marked them as "Failed" and moved on to a different cloning process, hoping that it would solve the problem... By the time Seven was created, we had hoped that we had solved the problem, and for the first two years of her life, thought that we actually _had _solved it..."

"Scientists on our home planet have also failed at cloning specific sparks. We banned the process because of the deadly effects that it had," Optimus added.

"Yes, well... We were hoping that it had been taken care of, so we went on with our original plans, and amputated Seven's right arm, and both legs, attaching ligaments that you see on her now. But after the first surgery, she began to become sick from an infection in some scar tissue within her. This was when she was only two years old. It was a minor illness for humans, but it was a major problem for us... As she got older, Seven never got sick again, but we always kept close attention to her, noting anything at all different in her normal behaviors."

"So what makes you think that a cold could mean that she's dying now?" Mikaela asked, trying to control the urge to tell the woman off.

"We kept her in a mostly sterile environment. Making sure that she was never exposed to any illnesses. If any lab technician in any part of our base even sneezed, they were sent home, and the lab that we had sheltered Seven in would be sealed up, keeping her in a sort of solitary confinement to ensure nothing got to her. When she escaped, and was exposed to society, she was being exposed to everything that normal humans are used to breathing in every day. It was a risk that had to be taken in order for her to be free from there..." Lillian finished.

"So... in theory, if the girl was to even catch a cold-" Ratchet began before being cut off.

"She could die in a matter of hours..." Lillian finished for him.

"But... She could also just get over it right? I mean, there's a chance isn't there?" Sam asked.

"It's such a small possibility that I wouldn't even say that it's a possibility," Lillian answered.

There was a brief silence before Optimus finally spoke up, "Lillian, there is also the matter of the location of your facility. We need to know where it is, in order to retrieve something of importance to us."

"Yeah... I can take you guys there I suppose..." Lillian replied, her mind still going over memories that she would have rathered forget.

"What about... What about this other woman? The one who looks like Cat?" Sam asked.

Lillian looked to the radio unit again, this time with a confused expression.

"Actually, I'm afraid I don't know anything about her. She said that her designation was "Project Eight", but I've honestly never encountered her before. She's... scary..." Lillian answered.

"She does not have any false appendages as Catherine does," Optimus pointed out.

"Yeah, that confused me as well. You see, it's like I said before. Seven was the only one who had a false arm and two false legs. The original plan for these projects was to have them all fitted with different stages of these arms and legs. But when they all showed signs of sickness at infant stages, we marked them as failing, and moved onto the next. Seven was the first one that we had actually appointed them to. But _Eight_ claims that she was given the project designation of number eight, which of course was _after_ the creation of Seven..." she explained.

"So, what does that mean?" Mikaela asked, just as confused as the rest of them.

"It means that I'm wondering why they didn't fit Eight with anything like what Seven has... You would think that they would have done something similar to her, as they did to her predecessor... So something's not right there..."

"Ratchet," Optimus started.

"Yes sir?" the medic responded.

"I'm assuming that you have scanned this other woman?" Optimus asked.

"Yes, which is how I knew that she and Catherine were different," Ratchet replied.

"Since she has no apparent limbs as Catherine does, it seems odd to me that she would be so much stronger," Optimus thought aloud.

Ratchet quickly reviewed the stats of the scans that he had done and replied, "Her skeletal structure appears to be made of Titanium... Her knee and ankle joints are not of human material, which allows her capabilities that far surpass that of Catherine's'... Organs and other internal portions of the girl seem to be human, and fully functional. Her skin, however, does not seem infallible. When she struck StarScream, she seemed to have endured several cuts and scrapes," Ratchet gave the full report.

"What about those crazy yellow eyes of hers?" Mikaela asked, wondering what that was all about.

Ratchet reviewed more of the stats that he had and then replied in an astonished voice, "Her... Her eyes are capable of the same that our own optics are! Infrared, wavelength detection, she could even use binocular vision! Amazing!"

"Someone on a _very_ high level created her... This may or may not be a good thing, depending on if what she said was true..." Lillian replied, thinking deeply.

"What did she say?" Sam asked.

"Well she claimed that she didn't come here to save Seven, yet she went to her aid... Perhaps her intentions aren't as pure as I originally thought they were," Lillian replied.

"Okay, what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Mikaela asked.

"It means she very well could have come here with the intentions to kill Seven _herself_..." Lillian replied with a cringe.

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"Pathetic..." a familiar voice said from behind her.

Cat's eyes shot open, the view of someone standing a few feet away from her was blurry.

"You've definitely seen better days..." The voice continued, sounding as if it were slowly approaching.

_"Stop this! Not now! You're not going to go crazy now! Let yourself die in peace!" _Cat thought to herself as she closed her eyes tightly, trying to ignore the voice.

"What's the matter, Seven? I told you once not to ignore me, and yet here you are, trying to tell yourself that it's all just a dream!" The footsteps stopped just a few feet away from Cat, who was still trying to tell herself that it wasn't real.

Cat could, suddenly, feel the ground rumble and shake just slightly as she opened her eyes and looked back to where the noises were coming from. She smiled with relief when she saw them.

"Hmm?" Eight turned a head to see the Autobots speeding towards them.

"So they've found us... I was hoping to have more time..." Eight said sourly.

Cat ignored the other woman, still thinking that it was all a part of some sort of "dream-state" that Optimus had asked her about earlier. She was just happy to see that everyone was all right.

As soon as they arrived on scene, the others saw that they were receiving a dull glare from "Eight", and a smile from Cat. Sam and Mikaela jumped out of Bumblebee, as he and the other Autobots transformed, Lillian exiting Optimus's truck cabin before he transformed.

"Leave her alone!" Mikaela about to run forward, felt Sam's hand grab her arm to hold her back. She looked to him with a questioning face and then back to the two women just a few yards away from them.

Cat briefly pondered who they were talking to.

_"Can they... Can they see her?!" _she thought.

"You should all leave... This has nothing to do with you!" Eight ordered.

"May I ask what your intentions are here?" Optimus asked.

"I already told you, this has nothing to do with any of you! Now go!" Eight replied, staying very still.

_"They.. They _can_ see her! Am I unconscious?! Is any of this real?!" _Cat couldn't help but wonder as she coughed, blood sputtering to the ground.

Ratchet scanned Cat as they stood in a moment of tense silence.

"Optimus, we don't have much time. " he advised.

"Yes, understood," Optimus nodded.

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Chapter Teaser!

Cat turned a side glance to the other woman and eyed her.

"It's time you paid back what you owe me!" Eight growled.

Instead of standing in a defensive position getting ready for a battle, Cat only turned to her look-a-like and softened her eyes. 

"You look different now... But I still know who you are, no matter what you try and do to seem different... Five..." Cat said in a soft voice.


	20. Stand Alone

Okay guys, here's the deal. I've been pretty busy as of lately and can't make anymore posts until early next week. I know, I know, I apologize, but you know how life gets. Sometimes it gets crazy and you end up posting faster than you can type lol. So I promise to keep working over the remainder of the week, and the weekend to bring you closure to this story. Of course, as always, thank you to all who have given such great reviews! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own TF, but I DO own P7.

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Eight looked to Ratchet as they were talking and saw something that interested her.

"Hey you! Medic!" She yelled.

Ratchet looked up to her wondering what she wanted, "Are you speaking to me?" he asked.

"Yes... You have managed to create a reproduction of her arm, and I want it... It will do for now..." she said as she turned to the group completely.

"I'm afraid that it's not yet complete," he said as he took it out and looked at it.

Eight growled and said, "I don't care! Just give it here, now!" she demanded.

Ratchet mumbled something inaudible to the rest of the group and threw it at the woman, who caught it with ease.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" Mikaela asked, Sam tried to quiet her, knowing that Ratchet really didn't have much of a choice.

Eight turned and walked over to Cat, who was still managing to hold herself up in a sitting position. The woman bent down to her and tore the remaining scrap components from Cat's arm, Cat flinching in the process. Then, to everyone's amazement, Eight put the arm down on the ground and clapped her own hands together, putting one hand on Cat's shoulder and the other to the shoulder component of the arm. Within seconds the arm was attached to Catherine.

"She has Alchemy powers too!" Sam pointed out, him and everyone else surprised.

Eight glanced back at the group and smirked, "Of course I do! I'm not _weak_ like other humans!"

Eight then looked back to Cat and clapped her hands together again, putting both of them to the other woman's shoulders. The group watched as the scratches disappeared, Cat could feel the broken bones and her internal bleeding heal. She opened both eyes wide as she saw her newly bent up legs begin to repair to one hundred percent. Eight stood up and backed away a few feet, allowing Cat a moment to pull her senses together.

Looking over herself, Cat realized that was completely healed. She almost couldn't believe it herself. Even her own Alchemy powers didn't allow her to heal flesh like that. She leaned forward, putting both hands on the ground, then set her legs up to stand. As she got to her feet she knew that this wasn't because Eight was showing some sort o mercy for her.

"Catherine? Are you all right?" Optimus asked, the others all stunned.

Cat wiggled her metal fingers around, ensuring that they were all functional. She gave a half smile and looked up to her friends and nodded. Sam and Mikaela smiled in relief only briefly before Eight spoke up.

"All right, enough messing around!" she yelled, annoyed.

Cat turned a side glance to the other woman and eyed her.

"It's time you paid back what you owe me!" Eight growled.

Instead of standing in a defensive position getting ready for a battle, Cat only turned to her look-a-like and softened her eyes.

"You look different now... But I still know who you are, no matter what you try and do to seem different... Five..." Cat said in a soft voice.

Everyone gasped in shock.

"_This_ is Five?" Ironhide asked.

Lillian took a few steps forward towards Cat and said, "No, Seven... Five died years ago. _This_ is Eight."

"It's her... I know it is... And now that I see you, I should have known what you were doing to me all this time... Trying to make me think that I was losing my mind were you?" Cat asked, coming to a realization.

"What's she talking about?" Sam asked.

"Five" gave a smug grin.

"So _that's_ what you were up to!" Lillian yelled out, also coming to a realization.

The Autobots looked back and forth between Lillian, Cat and Five, confused.

"Whenever you acted like you were asleep, you were using warfare against Seven! Weren't you?!" Lillian asked angrily.

"Can someone fill us in?!" Mikaela asked.

"Another one of the governments little experiments that they tried on us," Cat began to explain, "Several different kinds of neural stimulators that were injected into us. They wanted us to have some kinds of "psychic" abilities so that we would be able to use them against our enemies. Making them think that they were losing their minds in order to defeat them easier. It's a form of Psychological warfare."

"Except it didn't work as planned, " Lillian added, "They were only able to use the ability against each other!"

"You were using it on _me_ in order to make myself and those guys over there think that I was losing my mind!" Cat turned back to Five.

"That much I understand, but what I _don't_ understand is how you're here in front of me..." Cat said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"They told me that you probably thought that I had died that night... I suppose that they had to tell you something other than the truth, as always... But the truth is, is that I was the only one, besides your own cowardly hide, to survive. And it gave them a chance to try something new..." Five explained.

"My god... Even at the higher levels... They went even farther into their sick experiments!" Lillian exclaimed.

"Where do _you_ have room to talk?" Mikaela asked, Lillian turned to see her, Sam and the Autobots giving her the raised eyebrow look.

Lillian snapped back with, "I would have never gone along with something like that... I barely had any reasoning over any of the my co-workers. I was always outnumbered, no matter what it was that they wanted to do! It wasn't something I could control..." she looked back to Cat and Five with tears in her eyes, the others doing the same, deciding not to press forward anymore for the moment.

"Long story short, you were supposed to believe that I had died in order for them to keep the eighth project under complete silence. When you escaped, they wanted me to help them find you," Five explained further.

Cat's eyes widened, "You brought them here to take me back?!"

Five scoffed, "Of course not! I killed some of them and escaped myself. But I knew that I still had to find you..."

"Why? If I might ask," Lillian asked.

"You betrayed me Seven..." Five looked to the ground solemnly, her voice beginning to build a dangerous tone.

"You betrayed me, even when I fought to protect you... You wouldn't help me..." she went further.

Cat couldn't look at Five either. She knew what Five was doing... She was making her relive that moment in her mind like she had every day for the past six years.

"Don't..." Cat demanded in a trembling voice, on the verge of tears.

Five looked up at Cat with a glare.

"Don't make me remember it again... I've lived that moment in my mind so many times already... I couldn't Five... I was so scared... I saw the blood on you, your hand reaching out to mine... For once I was seeing you just as scared as I had always been... And it terrified me..." she explained.

"Which is why I've come to find you... I gave my entire life to protecting you, showing you the reasons for living, and you left me for dead. So now, you owe your life to me! And now... I'VE COME TO CLAIM IT!" Five shouted as she lunged forward, striking Cat in the chest, causing her to slide hundreds of yards away.

"NO!" The group shouted, running to Cat's aid.

Five watched as the Autobots and the three humans ran to Cat, helping her up.

"Is this how you battle now, Seven?" Five taunted.

Cat rubbed the area that she had been struck in and looked up at Five suddenly.

"You've gone from being protected by me, to being protected by robots from another planet?" She continued to antagonize.

"Are you all right?" Lillian asked as she and the rest looked Cat over.

"Get away..." Cat said in a low tone.

"What?" Mikaela asked.

Cat stood up on her own, keeping a glare on her twin and said, "Just go... Get away from here, now!"

"No... No! Cat! What the hell are you thinking?" Sam asked as he and Mikaela got on either side of the girl, tugging on her arms.

"You can't fight her! You'll be killed!" Mikaela added.

"I said... Go..." Cat replied, not looking to anyone in the group.

Lillian ran around to the front of Cat and put her hands on both of the girl's shoulders looking into her eyes.

"I know what happened that night, Seven! But it's not your fault! It's hers!" she yelled.

Cat gave a surprised look to Lillian.

"You didn't plan to try and leave the lab that night... It was _her_ idea! You were so young, and scared! She shouldn't have expected you to be the machine that you were supposed to be built for... Because you were only a child!" Lillian took the girl's chin in her right hand to make sure that her eyes didn't stray.

"You didn't pull the trigger..." she said softly, but sternly.

Five frowned and yelled, "She may as well have! She could have helped me! Saved me from being so close to death! But she was too much of a coward!"

Cat looked from Five back to Lillian.

"You don't owe her anything..." The older woman tried to reason.

The Autobots were completely at a loss as to what to do. On the one hand, Cat would be at great risk. On the other hand, they had seen Five's handiwork when she knocked StarScream's head clean off of his shoulders, so they would be at risk as well if they had tried to protect her.

Cat looked down to the ground for only a moment before she looked back up to Lillian and said, "She gave me everything she had back then... And I repaid her by watching her die and did nothing to stop it, even though I was the only one who could have stopped it... I owe her everything..."

Five went from a frown, to a smirk.

"No... No! You can't do this!" Mikaela yelled.

Optimus stepped forward and said, "This is Cat's decision. We cannot force her to do anything that she doesn't believe she's obligated to do."

"Optimus, come on! You guys can fight this can't you?!" Sam pleaded.

"This isn't their battle! This is mine!" Cat stood firm as she continued, "You guys, you've got _her_ to show you where you need to get the Allspark. Go!"

The Autobots looked to one another, wondering if it was the right thing to do.

"Right... Let's go Autobots!" Optimus ordered, the group transformed, Sam guiding Mikaela to Bumblebee who sat in waiting.

Optimus opened the passenger side door and said, "Lillian, you must come with us..."

Lillian looked back to the group that was waiting for her and she turned back to Cat.

"Look, I don't know if I can trust them... I need you to-"

"Trust them... I need you to take them to find the Allspark and Megatron..." Cat replied, looking to Five who stood, annoyed.

"Megatron?" Lillian asked.

Cat looked to the woman and said, "The other one... The one that is in the same facility where Five and I grew up. I know you know it's there... He's a bad one Lil, and he and rest of the other bad ones need to be destroyed, "Cat said as she looked back to the Autobots.

"I don't know why, but I trust them... Their intentions are for good. They saved me on more occasions in the past few days than even Five has ever done for me when I was growing up. Go to them, please..." Cat said as she walked forward a few feet and stopped again, turning her attention to the woman who stood perhaps not more than one hundred feet from them.

Lillian looked to Cat for a moment, then nodded. She started to walk away but stopped, not turning back to look at Cat and said, "This isn't the right fight to give your life for. You're worth much more to everyone who needs someone to fight for them... Cat..." and she walked to the semi truck and climbed in.

The vehicles sped off, in moments, only leaving Catherine and Five who faced each other in a moment of silence.

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Chapter Teaser!

"Get up and fight!" Five ordered as she pulled the girl to her feet, holding her by the front of her white tank top.

"No..." Cat replied, refusing to raise a hand as her body collapsed to the ground upon the release of Five's grip on her.

"You were designed to be a soldier! A soldier capable of mass destruction upon your enemies! And you _will_ stand to fight your enemy!" Five yelled to the girl, angry.

"I was designed to be a soldier of war... But you are _not_ my enemy..." Cat replied, ready for the final blow.


	21. Won't Talk

Hey guys! I'm sorry for taking so long, you all know how busy things can get. I'll try and keep the gears in motion faster than just a post per week, I promise D. Thank you all SO MUCH for all of your reviews! It's much appreciated! Well, here's what you've been waiting for! We're gettin' close the resolve! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, but Project Seven is my own little creation!

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"Why did those strange things call you "Cat"?" Five asked.

"They renamed me... They gave me a name to make me more human," Cat replied, not taking her eyes off of Five.

Five suddenly pounced forward, Cat only watched as the other woman ran to her and kicked her in the chest, sending her back another couple hundred feet. As the girl skidded to a stop and painfully sat up she saw Five standing right in front of her.

"You take a _Human_ name? How could you allow that?! How long could it have possibly taken you to learn in that place... That we aren't HUMAN?!" Five asked as she kicked Cat in the chest while she was still sitting, sending the girl's body into the ground hard enough to cause the ground to shake, and form a small indentation where her body lay.

Cat sat back up, with no intention of retaliating, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. Even though her lungs were beginning to burn again, she used what little air that was allowed into them and spoke.

"We _ARE_ Human... We were born... Human... But we were wrongfully... mistreated... We were told things... and taught things that we weren't... supposed to have to hear... Things that, "she coughed, " we were never supposed to be a part of... We were designed to be one thing... But we were born to... to be another... Not to be _what_ we were created for but... but to be _who_ we were...supposed to be..." Cat finished.

Five only stared down at the girl for a moment before pounding her chest with her foot several times.

"Get up and fight!" Five ordered as she pulled the girl to her feet, holding her by the front of her white tank top.

"No..." Cat replied, refusing to raise a hand as her body collapsed to the ground upon the release of Five's grip on her.

"You were designed to be a soldier! A soldier capable of mass destruction upon your enemies! And you _will_ stand to fight your enemy!" Five yelled to the girl, angry.

"I was designed to be a soldier of war... But you are _not_ my enemy..." Cat replied, ready for the final blow.

Five clapped her hands together and put them to the ground, the sands quickly forming into a steel blade, which rose above Cat, coiling back for the strike. Cat smiled smugly as she watched the blade plunge into her chest painfully.

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"Why the hell not?!" Sam yelled.

"I don't understand why Seven has trusted you this far, but I can't put any of this in jeopardy by telling you the location of the lab..." Lillian crossed her arms.

"Lillian, this is very important to us... It's what our planet once used as the energy to keep everything alive. We need the Allspark in the hands of our group of Autobots, where we can take it to be protected until the war between us and the Decepticons can be taken control of," Optimus explained.

Lillian gave a small smirk and said, "It's kind of funny... Even giant robots from other planets have wars that they want ended... No one is safe anymore..."

"We fight these wars in order to ensure future safety, Lillian. It's not something anyone wants to do, it's what we have to do," Optimus replied.

"Yeah... I suppose..." Lillian looked out of the passenger side window, watching traffic flow by them as they rolled down the highway.

"I've been wondering something," Ratchet spoke up after a moment of riding silently down the roads, "If you were so against all of the things that went on in this laboratory, why did you stay? Or why not just inform the public of it's existence?"

Lillian actually smiled a little and looked to the radio where she had heard the voice from.

"It was twenty years ago, and I was very young. I had been in the military since I had turned eighteen, and was a promising study in all areas. I was the most proper operative that there could have been. I excelled at everything that was thrown at me. All of this made me good at my job, but it also made me very foolish. When I was twenty, I was taken aside and given the best opportunity that anyone in my special ops field could have hoped for. A chance to be a part of top secret government projects, that even the president wasn't supposed to be aware of. So, of course, I jumped at the chance. Initially, I was only going to be a part of the project but..." Lillian looked out to see the setting sun as her eyes softened and her smile grew just a little more.

"But what?" Sam asked, looking at Mikaela, who looked to him as well with a strange look.

"But then... Seven was born. I took one look at her and, for some reason, knew that I needed to stay. After using some of my more charming ways of persuasion, I managed to get my way onto the board members council, and from there was one of the over viewers for Seven's development. I hadn't actually realized what I was getting myself into until after I did this, but I was willing to do put up with what I had to if I was going to be able to see to the projects developments," Lillian replied.

"So you stayed with that job because you saw yourself as the girl's protector?" Ironhide asked.

Lillian somewhat chuckled and replied, "I suppose you could say that. Although Seven-"

"Cat..." Mikaela interrupted.

"Right... "Cat" was stronger than most adults by the time she was eight years old. So in reality, I was only good for keeping too many experiments go overboard. I could only watch from the shadows as she grew up, being taught to be a machine..." Lillian replied.

"So if you thought that these experiments that they did to all of the projects were barbaric, why didn't you make it all public?" Sam asked.

"I was under several confidentiality agreements that if I had talked to anyone about any of it, let alone the media, I was going to be tried for treason, and probably killed before anyone knew what was going to happen. As well as the fact that even if the public made something out of the projects, they would have killed Catherine, as well as the others. There was no doubt in my mind that all of that would have happened," Lillian replied.

After about a half an hour of traveling, the darkness of the night finally took over, and the group decided to stop at a rest stop before finding a place to hide for the night. Sam, Mikaela and Lillian were using the facilities while the Autobots talked through their internal links to keep anyone near them from being suspicious.

"How in Primus have the Decepticons been able to track us down?!" Ironhide was beside himself.

"Perhaps they've been following us since we all arrived to Earth?" Ratchet concluded.

"However they've been doing it, surely they'll be leaving us alone for a few days while they repair themselves from today's battle," Optimus reminded.

"Yeah, hopefully we'll lose em' before we get to the Allspark," Jazz commented.

"...What about Cat?" Bee asked through some of the words of his radio.

"She told us to leave, BumbleBee..." Optimus reminded.

"Yeah but... Maybe we shouldn't have. You guys saw what Five did to StarScream, how was Cat supposed to fight against dat?" Jazz added.

There was a round of grumbling amongst the Autobots before Ratchet spoke up.

"I didn't want to say this to the children, or Lillian for that matter, but I kept my bio-scanners directed on the battle. Just before we were out of range, I detected no heart functions or neural activity from one of them, but I was too far away to know which one that was," he said with uncertainty.

Silence overcame the group.

"Let's not make mention of that to the three of them then... It might be for the best that they leave the battle at an unknown result for the time being. It would do them no good to their own health if they were to be upset anymore than what they are, " Optimus ordered.

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Lillian looked over a map that was located in the rest stop. She stared blankly at it while still going over Cat's battle in her mind... She hadn't meant for things to get this far... She was actually hoping that she could have saved the young girl somehow. ..

Looking up from the map, she saw Sam and Mikaela looking over some magazines and state brochures, looking as if they were having a conversation that wasn't about anything they were looking at. Lillian sighed and walked over to the two, who seemed to stop their silent arguing for the moment.

"Listen... I know I seemed to have caused a slight delay in your mission but-"

"Slight?!" Mikaela asked.

Lillian looked away.

"If you would just tell us where to find the Allspark, we could end this, our families could be returned to us and... And we might even have been able to save Cat..." Mikaela scolded.

"Nothing can save her... No one knows that better than me... And do you really think that by taking the Allspark right out from under the governments nose that they'll just return your families to you?! I'm sorry, happy endings don't happen so easily here in the real world," Lillian reminded.

There was a brief silence before Lillian continued.

"And how is it that you just automatically trust these creatures?!" she turned to point at the Autobots sitting a few yards away from the rest stop building, "They could be here to take the "Allspark" and destroy us for all you know! They could be getting on your good side now, ensuring that you trust them enough to lead them to the thing that could destroy us all if put in the wrong hands!"

"Stop!" Sam interjected, "Look at that..." he pointed to the nearest television set which was showing national news.

"- believed to be Sam Witwicky, and Mikaela Banes, broke into a home in Bullhead City, along with one other girl that has not yet been identified. The two teenagers, Sam and Mikaela, were under investigation by the national authorities when they reportedly ran. A nearby neighbor was able to catch this photo of the third woman in question, who looked so disturbed, the neighbor couldn't catch any images of the vehicles that they had driven away in, being scared that the woman would attack him. Here's the photo."

The reported showed an image of a woman who only had one arm and in torn clothing. Indeed she did look extremely disturbing of her facial expression. She had her back to the camera but her head was glanced over just enough to show a distained look, her eyes narrowed in a tight glare, her mouth at a frown, her blue eyes were the scariest part. They looked as though she really would have attacked, so it wasn't surprising that the person taking the pictures had made a cowardly dash into the house to call the police.

"Cat never said anything about a guy with a camera..." Mikaela was confused.

Lillian gave a snort of laughter and turned to the two confused children saying, "She may not have complete telepathic abilities, but she is very well-trained on how to send someone shaking in their boots with what little abilities she has. So that doesn't surprise me. She was probably able to scare him so badly that he might not have remembered what _they_, "she pointed to the Autobots, "looked like."

"Damn she's good!" Sam gave a small chuckle.

They watched the report just a bit further before something suddenly felt very wrong. They looked out of the windows of the building and saw several black SUV vehicles begin to cover the area, as well as several helicopters span the skies.

"Oh shit! Not now!" Sam yelled as the three of them looked to the Autobots who were sitting still, trying to stay under their cover.

"Come on! We have to get out of here fast!" Lillian shoved the two teens towards the back of the building, heading for the rear exit.

"We can't just leave them!" Sam protested.

"I doubt that these guys will know that it's them when they're in these alternate modes! As long as they stay like that they'll be okay! Now go!" She ordered again as they ran out into the back, running into the refuge of the small wooded area.

"What are we going to do?! We can't stay here!" Mikaela asked as they watched a few men look into the windows of all of the cars parked there, including those of their Autobot friends.

"...I've got an idea..." Lillian said quietly.

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Chapter Teaser!

_We've got the back! There's movement in the trees! Gamma team, take the flanks!"_

"On it now, sir!"

All of the helicopters migrated to the trees where they began to shine bright flood lights down upon the search. 

_"No one here!"_

"This area cleared as well sir!"

"Clear here-... wait... I've got some movement... I'm going in to check..."  



	22. Taken at a Disadvantage

Hey guys! Bet you thought it'd be a while before I updated again huh? Well here's the next installment! Thank you all for your reviews! Enjoy!

And also, to Psychic-Ghost and to everyone who noticed the same issue, I had to laugh when I saw the comment. I make the same mistake in my other Inuyasha fic. I tried to go back and fix this mistake in this fic but I have obviously missed a few. In my other fic I ended up doing it so much that I actually just made it permanent so as not to confuse the readers. I promise to try and watch myself in this fic lol.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, but I DO own Project Seven.

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"What are we to do?" Ratchet asked Optimus through the internal comm link.

"Just stay still for a moment Autobots... They probably don't even know that it's us. If the children could just get to us, we could make it out of here..." Optimus replied firmly as he watched the three humans exit the rear of the building.

"But the children will be caught! We can't just-" Ironhide began to protest.

"We cannot do anything at the moment, unless we are to blow our cover. Just be patient," Optimus scolded.

Just as Optimus had said this, however, a large group of the officers began to flock towards the rear of the building. The Autobots couldn't help but tense up at the situation. Jazz was able to hack into the human's communications and played it over their internal comm link.

_We've got the back! There's movement in the trees! Gamma team, take the flanks!"_

"On it now, sir!"

All of the helicopters migrated to the trees where they began to shine bright flood lights down upon the search. 

_"No one here!"_

"This area cleared as well sir!"

"Clear here-... wait... I've got some movement... I'm going in to check..."

The man left his radio on a continuous circuit as there was a moment of silence, followed by screams to "get down on the ground" and "get your hands up!".

_"I've got one of them sir!" _

"Who is it?!"

"She says that her name is Andrews! We've got the missing scientist sir! It's Lillian Andrews!"

"Where are the other two?!" 

The Autobots were silently think of how to diffuse the situation when they saw two figures running from behind the building.

"It's Sam and Mikaela!" Jazz yelled happily.

The two teens ran towards Bumblebee, who happily opened his doors to them, the five Autobots then leaving the area quickly and quietly.

"How did you two get away?!" Optimus was confused.

As the two caught their breaths, they spoke in turn.

"Lillian... distracted them and..." Sam started.

"We managed to get away... but she got caught..." Mikaela finished.

"Thank Primus that you two were able to get away, at least," Jazz commented.

"We should probably keep driving for a while, at least until we know we won't be caught if we stop to rest," Optimus ordered, the others in agreement.

They hadn't traveled for more than twenty minutes or so in silence before they noticed something on the highway. There were two cars that had been turned over, and were on each side of the road, smoke and fluids leaking from each one. They slowed down to a mere crawl as they looked around, seeing tires and parts everywhere.

"Should we do something?" Sam asked.

"I detect two life signs, one from each vehicle. They are badly damaged and unconscious..." Ratchet commented.

"Jazz, radio a signal for help through the human communications emergency line," Optimus ordered as they came to a stop.

"Yes sir!" Jazz did so.

Sam and Mikaela jumped out of Bumblebee as they ran to either car.

"Can't we help them?" Mikaela looked to the group for help as she saw the bloody mess of a man in a small sports car, the window somehow unshattered.

"It would be best not to move them until the human medical team arrives, but we could probably turn the cars upright easily without jostling them around too much. That would help the humans get to them faster," Ratchet replied.

Ratchet and Ironhide transformed into their humanoid forms and carefully turned the cars over, so as not to let the humans inside be moved around. As they finished this, they looked down the dark road to see, what looked to be, a human walked towards them in the middle of the highway.

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

As the person neared them, Ratchet's optics widened, "Get back you two!" he corralled the two teens back to Bumblebee.

"What is it?!" Mikaela asked, getting irritated.

The three remaining Autobots who had not transformed from their alt modes, turned their headlights on bright, pointing towards the figure. It didn't take more than a few more seconds before everyone recognized who it was and readied for battle.

A smirking Five walked towards the group. It wouldn't have made them so mad to see her, if they hadn't seen the dried blood caked on her face and clothing. It was all over her, streaks of it smeared on her entire body.

"Ratchet-" Optimus began before the medic answered.

"It's Catherine's blood, none of it belongs to Five!" he growled.

The woman stopped a few yards short of them and laughed.

"What's the matter? Aren't you glad to see me?!" her homicidal smile making everyone cringe.

"Where's Catherine?!" Optimus yelled with fury. He just couldn't understand why humans would do that to one another.

Five's smirk didn't dissipate as she looked to the cars on the road, the humans in them beginning to wake.

"I figured you'd stop for them..." she laughed again.

The rest of the group transformed into their humanoid forms and looked to the civilian cars, then back to Five.

"You... You caused this?!" Optimus asked.

"Well I needed a way to get you to slow down enough for me to talk," she shrugged as if nothing was wrong.

"Where's Cat?!" Mikaela yelled in anger.

Five sighed heavily and closed her eyes, her smirk had faded into an expressionless face.

"She's been taken care of... Right now I'm on another mission," she looked back up to them as she finished.

"Are you here to fight us then?!" Ironhide was practically shaking he was so angry.

"No, not for battle... I'm here to take you somewhere," she said casually.

"And where is that?!" Ratchet asked.

"You're looking for a specific item known as the "Allspark" to you correct? Well I'm here to actually take you there," she said crossing her arms.

"How do you know of the Allspark?!" Optimus asked.

Five rolled her yellow eyes, "I was in Seven's mind, remember? I know everything she knows... Now, you're going to play nice-nice with me or I'll destroy you all... Reasonable?"

"Why do you want to help us?!" Sam asked.

"I've got nothing better to do now," the girl smiled.

The group of Autobots armed themselves and pointed all of their arseniuret to the girl, rumbling with rage.

"Look, you can either let me take you there, or you can all die. The first ones to go will be _them_," she pointed to Sam and Mikaela.

"You're in no position to tell us who lives and who dies!" Ironhide scorned.

Just as they were watching Five stand still in front of them, she was gone in a flash. The mechs frantically searching around them before hearing a whistle. They turned to the children and gasped. Five had both arms around the necks of Sam and Mikaela, who were struggling against her.

"Killing them isn't something that I really care too much about. If they die, then their blood is on your own hands for being careless," she taunted.

The Autobots weren't sure what to do, their only charges were now in the hands of a murderous lunatic, and they had no way of stopping their eminent deaths.

"Now you boys behave yourselves and turn back into those nice car forms of yours. We'll go from there," she closed her giddy eyes.

They didn't have much choice. The Autobots obeyed the girl and they all transformed back into their alt modes, revving their engines in anger. Five let the two humans go and pushed them away. Bumblebee approached them quickly, urgently honking his horn in order to motion them to climb into his cab. They did so quickly after stumbling away from the wicked woman.

Five casually walked over to Optimus and climbed up to the driver's side door, "Knock knock, old man," she said as she cheerfully knocked on the door.

Optimus rumbled but opened the door for her as she got into the cab, the door slamming hard behind her.

"The human emergency response vehicles are nearly here, so let's be on our way!" Five said in another gleeful tone.

Optimus began to roll forward before he was stopped, "No, no. I'll be the one to drive. We don't want to be silly and take the main roads now do we?"

Optimus scowled but relented control of the driving to the girl. She roughly shifted gears as she took control and guided the group to the next exit, as she took a different back road path.

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They had driven for two hours, night turning into a long path North. They finally stopped with a few hours until dawn, on a high cliff, above a large river.

"Where are we?" Sam asked.

"A river that runs down from Lake Meade," Five explained as she jumped out of Optimus's semi cab.

"Why have we stopped?" The Autobot leader asked in a grumble.

"Now we wait..." Five said as she looked over the cliff.

"Wait for what?!" Mikaela asked.

Five didn't answer as she kept her eyes focused over the cliff and said, "You all should probably sleep for a while, it's going to be a long day tomorrow..."

Mikaela turned to Sam and asked in a whisper, "So first she threatens to kill us, and now she's worried that we'll be sleep deprived?!"

Five replied before Sam could answer, "Fine, stay awake... Do what you want..."

Before anyone knew exactly why, Five jumped down the cliff, jumping from rock to rock until reaching the bottom. Everyone ran to the edge to watch as she sat next to the edge of the water and washed the caked on blood from her arms, legs and face.

"I don't like this..." Sam said.

"What are we supposed to do? If we try and leave, she'll come after us and possibly kill us all!" Mikaela threw her hands up in frustration.

"However, she did make a good point. It's probably best that we all recharge for the night..." Optimus pointed out.

They watched for a moment as the girl stared blankly into the shimmering water in the nearly full moonlight. So far, it had been the only moment when this version of their friend looked remotely saddened or upset.

"Do you think that she actually feels regret?" Sam asked, all of them still watching her as she looked to her shirt at the dark red, dried substance.

"Humans can't hide from their emotions, just the same as a Cybertronian can't... I'm sure there's something inside of her trying to make sense of things... But it doesn't make up for the damage that's already been done..." Optimus said as he and the other Autobots walked away from the cliff to settle in for the night.

Sam stood at the edge for a few moments longer and watched as Five looked into the water at herself for just a little while before punching at the water, splashing the image away and dug her fingers into the dirt, lowering her head and looking away from the water.

"Come on Sam... We'd better sleep..." Mikaela shook the boy out of his watching over of Five and they both walked over to Bumblebee, all ready for a good sleep.

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It was the very crack of dawn. The sun had just barely risen, meaning there was still very little sunlight over the cliffs, and the desert was still cool from the night's sunless evening.

A small buzzing sound alerted the group that someone was nearby and getting closer. Sam and Mikaela jumped out of Bumblebee's cab as they looked to Five, who stood on one of the nearby boulders with her arms crossed, staring at the newly and barely risen sun.

"What's going on?!" Ironhide scowled, the group looking to Five.

"...They've arrived..." she said with a very slight smirk.

"Who's arrived?" Sam asked, looking at the horizon and seeing a cloud of dust flying up around a black vehicle.

"That's... That's one of the government's SUV's! You've brought the government here to take us haven't you?!" Mikaela shouted, making the others stir with growls and preparing to defend themselves.

"Settle down... You're making fools of yourselves..." Five groaned, rolling her eyes.

The black SUV approached the group and slammed on it's brakes as it swerved to a stop. The cloud of dust that it left made the group shade their eyes and wave their hands around to clear the air.

Once the dust settled a bit, they heard the driver's side and passenger side doors open, and saw two figures dressed in black suits, black hats and sunglasses emerge. The Autobots looked to one another almost in disbelief, but staying rather hushed.

Sam and Mikaela stepped forward and stared at the two figures as they closed the doors and walked forward.

"Who... Who are you?! What do you want?!" Mikaela yelled to them.

The two figures stopped just a couple of yards away from the group and looked to each other and smiled. They both looked back to everyone as they reached up and took off both the hat and sunglasses.

"No... No way!" Sam cried out as his astonished expression turned into one of glee, Mikaela as well.

The Autobots were certain that their optics were deceiving them, and each of them scanned the two figures over and over again, getting the same results each time.

"CAT!" Mikaela yelled, her and Sam running forward and hugging the girl in a tight hug.

Cat smiled and laughed a little as the two practically pummeled her, Lillian actually giving a sincere smile as well. After the two nearly strangled Cat with their hugs, they backed up, their minds swirling with questions just before Five grinned and jumped from the boulder, walking to the two who had just arrived.

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Chapter Teaser!

"So you didn't actually kill Cat? You just used her blood to make it all look real?" Jazz asked, confused.

Both Five and Cat frowned, looking to each other and then back to the group.

"No... The blood I had on me was from when I killed her all right... "


	23. Explaination

Hey all! Here's a weekend chapter! Thank you all for your encouragement, and Psychic-Ghost, I promise to try and remember your suggestion! Here's my next installment! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, blah blah blah, I own Project Seven.

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"How was it?" Five asked, looking between Cat and Lillian.

"Too easy. I'm almost _upset_ that it was so simple," Cat smirked, looking to Lillian.

"See? I told you we'd fool them!" Cat snickered with a chuckle as she patted the hat in her hands.

"Yes, they were certainly surprised," Lillian agreed.

"Wait, wait... How did you... I mean... What are you... How in the hell did you-" Sam began, unable to put all of the questions that he wanted answering in the right order.

Cat laughed and patted the poor boy on the back, "I guess it's a long story. Geez I'm only gone for less than a day and there's already so much to catch up on!"

Before anyone could play the game twenty questions, a mechanical hand snatched Cat up quickly, blue optics overlooking her closely, almost in disbelief.

Cat actually smiled at being scanned over and said, "Hi, to you too, Ratchet!"

Ratchet's optics widened and looked to Optimus, "It's... It's really her!"

The Autobots couldn't help but surround the girl in Ratchet's palm, smiling and feeling waves of relief rush over them all.

Five walked over to the mechs and yelled up at Cat, "Did you bring them?"

Cat looked down to Five and said, "Yeah, yours are in truck there."

"Her's what?" Sam asked.

Five bounded for the truck and opened the back door finding another black and white, government issued suit and sunglasses.

"We've- come on Ratchet, it's me, really! You can let me down!" Cat gave a reassuring nod to the medic as he placed her on the ground so she could walk over the truck.

"Not too long after you guys left, I managed to intervene and get to Lil here before the feds could drag her off. Five went to get you guys to bring you here, and I was able to, let's say, make use of the government being there. After which, we were to meet up with you guys here so we could all go get the Allspark!" Cat explained.

"Wait, so if you were alive and well, why didn't Five just tell us?!" Sam asked.

Five yelled from behind the truck while she changed, "Would you have believed me?!"

Cat looked confused all of a sudden, "You mean... she didn't tell you guys about all of this?"

Five walked out from behind the truck, in her own government suit.

"It wasn't going to be like they were going to automatically trust me. I knew they'd think that I was making it all up to find a way to kill them or something, so I had to do it _my_ way," Five groaned as she adjusted the tie and jacket.

Cat raised an eyebrow, "What exactly was your _way_?"

"She crashed two civilian cars, nearly killing the humans inside of them to get our attention, then threatened to kill the children if we didn't do as she said..." Optimus crossed his arms.

Cat's shoulders slumped as she turned and gave Five a "Why?!" look.

"Actually, I had nothing to do with that crash, they did it all on their own. I made sure that they were alive and noticed that you guys were coming my way, so I used the situation to my advantage and waited for you to stop, knowing that it would have given me a chance to talk to you," Five explained.

"But you said that you needed a way to get our attention!" Ironhide huffed.

"I didn't lie. I needed a way to get your attention. Those cars just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I never said I had anything to do with that crash, I just said that I needed to talk with you," Five snickered.

"You also claimed that Cat was dead!" Ratchet accused.

"No I didn't... If you remember correctly, I said that she was taken care of... I also mentioned the fact that I know what she "knows" since I had been perusing around her mind. I'm actually surprised that you guys didn't catch that one," Five laughed.

"So when you threatened to kill us-" Mikaela started.

"I wouldn't have, but I played to my advantage, knowing that these guys were going to follow my orders as soon as they realized that they were at a disadvantage. And as I figured that they would, they folded as easily as lawn chairs and became pawns in my little scheme. I must admit, it all made things go very smoothly for me," Five smirked.

"But still, if you had told us that Cat was alive, we might have just come here anyway, knowing that we would see her " Optimus reasoned.

"Right, " Five replied sarcastically crossing her arms, "You would have seen all of the blood on me and automatically assumed that I was telling the truth?"

The Autobots looked to each other as if to say "Yeah, probably not..." as they shrugged.

"So you didn't actually kill Cat? You just used her blood to make it all look real?" Jazz asked, confused.

Both Five and Cat frowned, looking to each other and then back to the group.

"No... The blood I had on me was from when I killed her all right... "

"Wait... If she killed you, then what are you doing standing here in front of us?" Sam asked, confused.

Cat sighed while Five frowned and looked away.

"I suppose you should know anyway..." Cat said as she began to explain.

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-Flashback-

"Get up and fight!" Five ordered as she pulled the girl to her feet, holding her by the front of her white tank top.

"No..." Cat replied, refusing to raise a hand as her body collapsed to the ground upon the release of Five's grip on her.

"You were designed to be a soldier! A soldier capable of mass destruction upon your enemies! And you _will_ stand to fight your enemy!" Five yelled to the girl, angry.

"I was designed to be a soldier of war... But you are _not_ my enemy..." Cat replied, ready for the final blow.

Five clapped her hands together and put them to the ground, the sands quickly forming into a steel blade, which rose above Cat, coiling back for the strike. Cat smiled smugly as she watched the blade plunge into her chest painfully. Her body convulsed for only a few seconds before falling limp, eyes rolling to the back of her head.

Five stood up, the blade dissipating back into nothing but sand as she looked over Cat's lifeless body. She had finally found a resolution what had haunted her every day for the past six years... Hadn't she?... Just as a feeling of satisfaction washed over her, it disappeared, her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach as something in her mind suddenly snapped.

"What have I done?!" Five yelled as she ran over to Cat's body picking her up into her arms and clutching the dead woman to her chest.

"I'm sorry Seven! I'm so sorry! I promised to always be there to protect you and I killed you instead! Why did I do that?!" she cried out, Cat's blood smearing all over her as she held her so close.

Five suddenly put Cat down gently and said, "No! I won't let you die!"

She put both of her hands on the girl's bloody chest and pulled electrical waves from the earth through Cat's body as she healed all of her wounds. The electrical waves shot through the girl's body as Five attempted to revive her. Every wave of energy rushed to her from head to toe as her body didn't respond.

"Wake up! Dammit wake UP!" Five screeched, tears in her eyes, still pulling electrical pulses from the earth through Cat's lifeless body.

Time after time she did this, until she finally stopped, realizing that too much more would only be doing more harm instead of any good. Five, then, picked up Cat's body and held her close to her once more.

"I'm so sorry... So, so sorry Seven..." she whispered.

Cat's body suddenly jumped to life on it's own as she began to cough, her lungs gasping for air as jagged breaths managed to make their way into her lungs. Five was completely startled by this and jumped, still holding her twin in her arms tightly. Cat's eyes shot open, looking around as if she were also startled by what was going on. She looked up to Five as her breaths started to come easier to her and noticed where she was, remembering what had just happened to her.

"F-Five?" Cat asked.

Five laughed and tightly clutched her twin to her chest.

"Yeah, little sister... It's me..." tears streaming down her face.

"What just happened?" Cat asked, confused.

"Can you ever forgive me?" Five quietly asked.

Cat looked even more confused, "But I thought that... I mean..."

"You were right... We're not enemies... I don't know why I felt the way that I did but I know that I don't really want you dead... Not anymore..." Five explained solemnly.

Cat looked up to Five, her confused look beginning to switch into a smile and hugging her twin back.

"I thought you were going to hate me forever..." Cat sobbed.

"I thought so too... But I finally came to my senses... I'm sorry it took so long," Five replied.

-End Flashback-

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After that, it only took her a few minutes to make her understand that we needed to help you guys, so we got onto your trail quickly," Cat finished the story before coming up to a question of her own, "Which brings me to why you guys were so far out a different direction to where you needed to go..."

"Your little _friend_ over there wouldn't tell us where to go!" Sam said angrily, the others nodding in agreement.

Cat looked to Lillian who looked to the ground with a frown and said, "Why?"

Lillian couldn't look at anyone. She didn't want to admit that she might have been wrong about the alien beings in front of her.

"I didn't... I didn't want to trust them..." she said.

Cat turned to the woman and said, "I thought I told you to take them where they needed to go... That you could trust them? If it wasn't for them I'd probably be back in the hands of the government, for crying out loud!"

"It's like talking to a brick wall, Cat... You may as well have just left her back there at the rest stop and-" Mikaela started.

"Actually, you guys have no room to talk here. If it wasn't for Lil, I'd have either harmed or killed you the morning that I woke up to see you guys for the first time," Cat interrupted.

The group looked confused, "What's _that_ mean?" Sam asked.

"I would have fought you guys or run away as quickly as possible if it weren't for the fact that Lillian made me promise not to harm anyone if they meant no harm against me. And when you guys told me that you weren't going to do that, I had a change of heart. So if it weren't for her, things may have turned out a bit differently," Cat explained.

The group, besides Cat, Five and Lillian grumbled but dropped the subject.

"So, what happened when you found her at the rest stop then?" Mikaela asked.

Cat smiled strangely in a way that made the group nearly gasp. She really did look like Five, with the exception of the yellow eyes.

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-Another Flashback-

"Where's Seven?!" Simmons asked Lillian, but she didn't respond to him, nor even look him in the eye.

Several officers stood around Lillian as they interrogated her.

"Need I remind you, that you are facing so many charges that you'll be lucky if you _ever_ see the light of day again!" Simmons growled.

Just as Lillian looked up to give them a smart comment in return, her mouth opened but no noise came out. Instead, her facial expression went from anger to a smile.

"What the hell are you smiling about?!" Simmons shouted within inches of the woman's face.

A hand suddenly went to Simmons' shoulder as he looked to the hand. The metal appendage gave a few light taps as the group of officers eyes widened, holding their breaths.

"Hello boys... How's things been since I've been gone? Good I hope?" A woman's voice asked in a taunting tone.

A few minutes later all of the officers found themselves either tied up to the base of a tree by their clothing, or if they were as unlucky as Simmons, they found themselves hanging from the tree by an atomic wedgie, their mouths covered with a gag.

-End Flashback-

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The two teens couldn't help but nearly roll on the ground, they were laughing so hard. As well as a few good chuckles from the Autobots. Five gave a few giggles as well to herself quietly. Cat was laughing a bit as well, but was suddenly stopped by a fit of coughs, causing the rest of the group to go silent, very quick.

"You... okay Cat?" Sam asked.

Cat managed to breathe normally again as her coughing fit ended, "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. No worries," she shrugged it off quickly.

"You are ill," Ratchet said softly.

"No, no. I don't get sick," she gave the medic a wave as if dismissing his claims.

The group looked to Five who was looking away with a solemn look upon her face. Lillian moved forward towards Cat as if to comfort her, but she knew that it would do no good. So she stopped herself and looked away, looking as if she were very sad indeed.

"Anyway, so we had this idea, "Cat tugged on the suit that she was wearing and smiled.

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Chapter Teaser!

Five narrowed her eyes before looking back over the cliff and said, "I plan on destroying anyone and anything in my way..."

"In your way of what?" Ironhide asked.

"I'm going to reveal this government for what it's done, and then I'm going to kill everyone at the top... Leaving only me," Five replied in a low growl.

"Do you mean to say that you wish to control the human race?" Optimus asked, startled at the girl's answer.

"Well someone has to... Someone has to teach these people a lesson for all the pain that they've caused... And if I have to destroy everyone who gets in my way, then so be it," Five replied.


	24. Like Talking to a Brick Wall

Hey all! Sorry to take so long with this next update! Thank you all for your gracious reviews! They are always welcomed! Well here it is! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, but I do own Project Seven, and Project Five.

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"Anyway, so we had this idea, "Cat tugged on the suit that she was wearing and smiled.

"Ah... Yes, the suits. Tell us about this, "Optimus helped the girl change the subject.

"We figured that the three of us could get in the facility and get what we needed. Maybe even destroy Megatron while we're in there," she said.

"Not alone, we hope?" Ironhide asked, as if he almost couldn't contain not using his canons any longer.

"Well we haven't figured everything out just yet. We were thinking of just playing it by ear, but we may need to do more planning," Cat replied.

"Can we help?" Mikaela asked, referring to her and Sam. They wanted in in the action too.

Cat smiled and said, "Yeah, I think we put something together for you guys. Come on, maybe there's something in this truck that we can use."

Cat, Lillian and the two teens walked a ways to the truck while Five scoffed and jumped over to the cliff where she had been standing the night before. Taking the opportunity, the Autobots walked over to Five. They had a few questions for her.

"What do _you_ want?" Five asked, not looking away from the cliff's edge.

"I'm assuming that you understand Cat's condition?" Optimus asked.

Five sighed, "Of course I do..."

"What can we do to-" Ratchet began.

"Nothing..." Five replied in a gruff, by silent tone.

"But... You are older than her, aren't you? How is it that you managed to avoid the same plague?" Optimus asked.

"I wish I knew... I know it has something to do with the _updates_ that I was given, but I don't know what it is that they did to ensure that I survived... So there's nothing you can do..." Five replied.

"If the humans were able to save _you_, then there must be a way for _us_ to help Catherine," Ratchet said in a matter-of-factly tone.

"Well if you're hoping to find a cure, then you better think of one quick..." Five said.

"Why's dat?" Jazz asked.

"I grew up in that lab the same as Seven did... I've seen some of the projects die off the same way _she's_ dying... It's a rather progressive little problem, and I'd be surprised if she made it to the end of the day..." Five replied.

The group looked back to the four other humans to see that they were smiling and talking as they were going through the back of the truck.

"What about you?" Optimus turned and asked.

Five glanced back at the robot and asked, "What _about_ me?"

"What do you plan on doing once she dies? Where are you going to go? How are you going to live?" he asked.

Five narrowed her eyes before looking back over the cliff and said, "I plan on destroying anyone and anything in my way..."

"In your way of what?" Ironhide asked.

"I'm going to reveal this government for what it's done, and then I'm going to kill everyone at the top... Leaving only me," Five replied in a low growl.

"Do you mean to say that you wish to control the human race?" Optimus asked, startled at the girl's answer.

"Well someone has to... Someone has to teach these people a lesson for all the pain that they've caused... And if I have to destroy everyone who gets in my way, then so be it," Five replied.

The Autobots looked to one another before their leader spoke again, "On our home planet, we have three different factions to our war. The Autobots, the Neutrals, and the Decepticons. The Decepticons are the force that wishes for everyone to perish if they disagree to their rules, and they wish to rule this entire universe. The one that we call "Megatron", which resides at this facility where you and Catherine have aged, is the leader of the Decepticons."

"So... You think I should destroy him too then? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Five asked.

"No... What you have just described as your plan for life after Catherine's death, is the same plan that Megatron has for this entire universe, which is why we are at war with the Decepticons. We wish to fight for freedom and safety for all beings," Optimus explained.

"These people need to pay for what they've done to us... And that's what I'm doing, repaying the favor that they've put unto Seven and myself..." Five replied.

"Catherine wishes to fight for her own freedom. She doesn't want to enslave the human race as you do. She's fighting for yours and her rights..." Optimus reasoned.

"Well it doesn't matter for her now does it?! She's going to die trying to fight for freedom! I'm going to preserve my rights by destroying everything that opposes me!" Five turned and snarled, raising a fist in anger, "It's them or us! And I choose ME!" She jumped to another cliff nearby, which was farther up the side of the rocky area so that she couldn't be bothered.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Jazz spoke up.

"What's that?" Ironhide asked.

"Cat and Five are one in the same. They're from the same bloodline, they look alike, and sound alike. But one fights for freedom, the other fights for personal gain. Remind you guys of anything'?" he said.

"Yes, I'm afraid it does... Decepticon," they looked up to Five, then looked back to Cat, "Autobot... Needless wars aren't just limited to us I'm afraid..." Optimus sighed as they walked back towards the SUV.

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Cat and the others walked over to the SUV and opened up the back of the truck, lifting it's rear door. There were several things strewn about the back, including clothing and broken electronics.

"It looks like a rat's nest back here..." Mikaela commented.

"Well, I was kind of in a hurry. I threw a lot of things in here and only after driving for a couple of miles I had to stop and take this truck's tracking system apart bolt by bolt as fast as I could so we wouldn't be tracked. As well as a few other little goodies that I found while inspecting it," Cat replied, throwing some broken objects around the back.

While Cat did this she looked up and saw that the Autobots seemed to have gotten into a conversation with Five.

"What's wrong, Cat?" Sam asked as he noticed the girl stop going through the items.

"Uh... N-Nothing," she gave a quiet laugh as she went back through the things.

"So... Why exactly did you take these things apart little by little instead of destroying them, or leaving them behind? Wouldn't that have been faster?" Mikaela asked.

"We need this truck to look as if nothing has happened to it, and in order to do that, I need to be able to make a shell of the tracking system. They're going to go over the truck to make sure it's all intact, and unless we want to be stopped at the gate, we need to make it look up to code," Cat explained as she went through some of the things, looking back to the others every once and a while to see what was going on.

"Are these all those agents clothes?" Sam asked, all wide eyed as he separated clothing from electronics.

"Well, like I said, I used some of them to tie them up. I didn't have rope at the time and I was in a bit of a rush. However, I _did_ manage to ensure that Simmons wouldn't be getting _his_ stuff back," Cat grinned, looking up momentarily to see that the Autobots were all turned, looking at... Were they looking at _her_?

"Who's got _his_ clothes?!" Mikaela asked, making a disgusted look on her face as if detesting wearing anything that belonged to the agent.

"That would be Five," Cat laughed, the others laughing as well.

Cat looked up to see that the Autobots seemed to be getting a scolding from Five as she was, now, turned to look at them, yelling. She noticed as the other girl seemed to jump away from them, getting at a high spot on a cliff's edge and sitting down, a grumpy look on her face. Cat, then, noticed that the robots were talking and then looked from Five to... Were they looking at her again?!... And then began to trek over towards them.

"You okay Cat?" Mikaela asked, putting a hand to her friends shoulder and giving her a little shake.

"Yeah, why?" Cat asked.

"You just ripped a shirt completely apart..." Sam pointed out, seemingly to back away from the girl in fear that she was about to lash out about something.

Cat was startled and looked down to her hands, seeing two parts of a polo button-up shirt in each one.

"Ah... So I have... Oh well, there's plenty more where that came from," she feigned a laugh as the three looked to one another, with questioning looks.

The Autobots approached the three as Sam and Mikaela put their new clothes on over their regular clothing. Cat's eyebrow twitched as though she had just realized something and then glared to the mechs, giving them a bit of a rattled look.

"What took ya?" Cat asked in a suspicious tone.

"Uh.. We had some things to discuss with Five... So what's the plan?" Optimus replied, and then quickly changed the subject.

Cat sighed and looked back to what she was doing earlier, "We're getting ourselves ready to impersonate the agents, and infiltrate the labs... I think you two ought to stick with the truck once we're inside, "she pointed to Sam and Mikaela, who were being helped to make the suits fit by Lillian.

"Why?!" Mikaela asked.

"Four "agents" walking around together is just unusual. Five and I know the lab areas better than anyone else, and Lillian can get us through some of the major blockades from the security room once we're in. So it'd be better if you two stuck by to make sure that we have a getaway truck in place," Cat put it simply.

"But... we were kind of hoping to help from the inside," Sam sounded disappointed.

"I'm sorry guys, but if too many of us went in, there'd be a chance that not all of us would come back out. And we don't have that kind of time just to be looking around for someone if they get captured or lost," Cat reasoned.

"I agree, we can't have you two being captured, it would be too great of a distraction, and too great of a risk," Optimus said, the other mechs nodding in agreement.

Cat looked up to the Autobots and said, "We're going to need one of you guys to take another way into the lab. I'm assuming that this Allspark will need very specific people to have it moved, correct?"

"If it's in the state that we think it's in, then yes, you are right, "Ratchet agreed.

"Right. Then we'll need one of you to take post at a specific hanger nearby the labs. When we're ready, we'll talk you through where you need to go to meet up with us," Cat nodded confidently.

"And how are you planning to talk us through? With what communications device?" Ironhide asked.

"Well... I've still yet to put something together out of these parts," Cat replied with a sheepish grin, holding up a handful of chips and processors from the SUV's tracking system.

"Where'd you get _those_?!" Jazz asked incredulously.

Cat stifled a laugh and sighed instead, looking over to where Five sat on the cliffs, sulking.

"Five!" Cat yelled, the other girl looking over from afar.

"Come on! Time to go!" Cat waved her over.

Five nodded and stood up, jumping off of the cliffs and running over to them.

"All set then?" Five asked, crossing her arms.

Cat threw the rest of the parts in a plastic bag and then shuffled the clothing to the ground, cleaning the back of the truck out completely.

"Five, take these four in the truck..." Cat gave a serious look to her counter-part.

Five couldn't help but twist her face in a strange, questioning look, "Why?"

"I need to discuss some things with these guys... You can lead us to the facility and we'll follow," Cat replied, looking to the Autobots.

"But... I... I don't understand..." Five tried to give her twin the third degree about why she didn't feel like babysitting humans.

"Please?" Cat asked, giving the puppy dog eyes to her twin.

"...Just so ya know... I hate you..." Five grabbed the truck keys from Cat and stomped over to the driver's side door.

Cat smiled widely and looked to the mechs, "Five's going to take them in the truck, and you guys and I are going to have a nice little chat on the way there while I fix up our little gadgets."

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Chapter Teaser!

"Uh, hey buddy. Anything the matter?" Cat asked, parts in her hands and a few processor chips in the sides of her mouth as she prepared to remake the shell of the tracking system.

Optimus was shaken out of his thoughts. The last time he had someone sitting in his front seat he was taken control of, and for some reason half-expected the newer driver to do the same. The other Autobots were in waiting for Optimus to take the lead as he rumbled and drove forward, following the black truck.

"What was it that you wanted to speak about?" Optimus finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

Cat looked up from what she was doing, knowing that the mech had left his communications open for the others to listen in on. She sighed and settled back into the seat, looking out the window.

"Tell me what you know first..." she said quietly.


	25. Temporary Author's Note

Hey guys!! I promise that I'll get in an update soon enough, but I thought you'd like to know what was slowing the process down a bit.

I, er... Well the truth is I bought the Transformers game and have been glued to it for days now. And then of course the new Zelda game for DS comes out (I know, I'm such a little kid at nearly 23 B ) But I promise that I'll get back to my writings and get a post up in the next couple of days!

Thank you to all of my faithful readers! I won't let you down!


	26. Execute Operation Retrieve Allspark

Hey all! Well here it is! I made a promise and I keep my word! Here's the next update! Thank you for all of your kind reviews, and of course, your understanding lol.

Happy birthday NoaWhan! I hope this makes a good b-day present lol.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, I DO own Project Seven, and Project Five.

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Cat smiled widely and looked to the mechs, "Five's going to take them in the truck, and you guys and I are going to have a nice little chat on the way there while I fix up our little gadgets."

Bumblebee was the first to protest. He stepped to the truck and blocked the teens' entrance to it, shaking his head. It was obvious that he held a distrust for the girl who, only hours before, threatened to kill the two.

Cat looked up to the yellow mech who was looking at her defiantly.

"It's fine Bee. Trust me on this, okay? She won't do anything to harm them," Cat assured with a warm smile.

Bumblebee looked from Cat to Five, who was standing near the driver's side down with her arms crossed, a sour frown on her face.

"Right, Five?" Cat gave her look-a-like a nod as if to say 'Make nice-nice'.

Five rolled her bright yellow eyes and said, "Yeah yeah. I'll behave... I won't let anything happen to them..."

"There you see? They're going to be fine. Besides, They're actually very safe with her. Safer than they'd be with me," Cat said.

The Autobots looked to Cat as she gave them a serious nod and realized that she was right. As of right now, Five was the best fighter on the planet, and Sam and Mikaela were going to be under her watchful eye. Even if she was a lunatic, she would obey Cat if she were told to look after the two teens.

Bumblebee let up on the block that he had made in front of the car and rejoined the other four as they, then, turned into their alt modes. Sam and Mikaela hopped into the truck's rear passenger seats while Five got into the driver's side, Lillian taking the front passenger seat. Optimus opened his driver's side door for Cat and she climbed in. The black SUV began to take off but Cat noticed that Optimus wasn't moving.

"Uh, hey buddy. Anything the matter?" Cat asked, parts in her hands and a few processor chips in the sides of her mouth as she prepared to remake the shell of the tracking system.

Optimus was shaken out of his thoughts. The last time he had someone sitting in his front seat he was taken control of, and for some reason half-expected the newer driver to do the same. The other Autobots were in waiting for Optimus to take the lead as he rumbled and drove forward, following the black truck.

"What was it that you wanted to speak about?" Optimus finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

Cat looked up from what she was doing, knowing that the mech had left his communications open for the others to listen in on. She sighed and settled back into the seat, looking out the window.

"Tell me what you know first..." she said quietly.

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After a few tense moments of silence, Sam and Mikaela looked to each other then up to Five.

"So uh... Are we going to need like... badges or something to get in at least?" Sam asked.

Five didn't look back to them but said, "It's probably been alerted to the government, by now, that the agents at that rest stop were stripped of their badges. If we try to use them then we'll be caught. They've probably tagged the i.d. tags so that once they've been scanned a silent alert will let the scanner know what's going on..."

"Oh..." Sam replied.

Another brief silence.

"What did she want to talk with the others about? Do you know?" Mikaela asked suddenly.

Lillian looked back to them, and Five glanced back for a few seconds in the rear-view mirror.

"I don't know..." Five lied. She knew exactly what it was that she wanted to talk with them about.

"You think that we're supposed to believe that you can't access Cat's mind anymore?" Mikaela asked sarcastically.

Five didn't answer. Even though she had the power to see into Cat's thoughts, she had promised her that she wouldn't unless they were communicating while apart, or if it was an emergency. However, she didn't always keep to that promise, and she didn't want anyone to know.

"Why is it that you call her by a Human name?" Five asked out of the blue.

"Maybe because she's human?" Sam answered with a question.

Five narrowed her eyes, "Seven is not a Human... And nor am I..."

"What makes you so sure? You were created from Human genes, born by Humans, and have Human bodies," Mikaela reasoned.

"Perhaps Seven didn't make herself clear when and if she explained our history to you... We were imprisoned and treated like wild animals... And that was on a good day... On a bad day, we would come nearly close to death by the experiments," Five's voice grew even more sour with every word that she spoke.

Lillian looked away and to the floor... She couldn't help but feel as though she were responsible for a lot of what had happened to the two.

"Yeah, but now you're free! You can live the way you're supposed to," Sam said.

"Free to live like the ones that we were raised by?! How are we free, exactly?! Running from the government on a day to day basis sounds like a real sweet life to me, how about you?!" Five growled.

Another silence.

Five looked into the rearview mirror and saw that she was being tailgated.

"That yellow friend of yours is getting on my nerves..." Five pointed behind them with her thumb.

Sam and Mikaela looked behind the truck to see that Bumblebee was taking very little chances. He was practically less than an inch from the truck's rear bumper. The two teens smiled and waved.

"Hey buddy," Sam said.

Bumblebee honked in return.

Five looked into the rearview directly at the Camaro.

"You mind?!" she huffed.

The yellow vehicle gave only a couple feet extra of slack as he made sure to stay within a protective distance from the two teenagers.

Five sighed and returned her gaze to the road ahead of them.

"I can't help but ask... Cat noticed it, as well as myself. What was it that you and the robots were speaking about?" Lillian asked.

"...We're here..." Five announced, not planning to answer Lillian's question.

The three looked to the area where Five had slowed down to.

"The Hoover Dam?!" Sam's eyes widened.

Lillian sighed and crossed her arms. Five came to a stop at a high cliff above the Dam, where they could take an overview of the situation. The others stopped behind the truck and overlooked the area as well. Cat jumped out of Optimus, with the shell cover of the old tracking system and looked over the cliff, standing in front of the truck. She then looked back to Five, who was still in the truck along with the three others and nodded. Five gave a nod back.

"Stay here, this will take just a few minutes..." Five ordered as she got out of the truck and walked over to Cat.

"There are... a lot of Humans around here..." Cat was somewhat surprised that there could have been so many civilians around the same facility where she was locked up.

"Are you actually up to this?" Five asked, serious.

Cat watched some of the vehicles pass over the dam and then turned to Five, "We've got no other choice," she looked to the Autobots, who were still in their alt modes in waiting.

"Getting the Allspark means saving their world and ours all in the same... And if that's what we have to do, then it's got to be done," Cat nodded confidently.

Five sighed and said, "Let's do this thing then..."

"Right, "Cat nodded in agreement, "But I think we need to change the plan around a little."

Five crossed her arms and smirked. She knew that when Cat was in the right mood she could be a better strategist than she thought she could.

"What did you have in mind?" Five asked.

Cat snickered and looked back to the three humans in the SUV.

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There were several guards posted around the perimeter, on high alert for the latest crisis that was currently involving our friends. One guard shack, in particular, was having a rather slow day. There was hardly any movement of even so much as a tumbleweed. That was until a truck began to pull up from the distance.

"Hey... What's that?" one of the guards pointed out to the oncoming SUV.

"Looks like we've finally got some action!" The other guard stood up and walked out of the shack, the other sticking by the emergency button access for the "just in case" circumstance.

The SUV pulled up to the guard shack as if it were in a hurry, and the guard walked to the driver's side window.

"What's the good word?" the guard smiled.

The driver's side window rolled down to reveal a woman's face, sunglasses hiding her eyes.

"We've just recovered the elusive Sam Witwicky," the driver smiled and pointed to the back seat as the back window rolled down to reveal two guards in the back, and a handcuffed and gagged Sam in the middle, wearing his normal clothing.

"Where the hell did you find _him_?!" The guard was stunned.

"Seems as though he was left behind by his alien buddies... We're here to turn him in quickly. We think he knows more than he's said so far and we need to get him to interrogation where he can be properly welcomed," the woman smiled with a small nod.

"Oh, uh... Yeah, yeah! Sure!" the astonished guard turned to the other in the shack and waved a motion telling him to open the gates.

The other guard nodded and pressed the button for the gate to be opened. The guard on the outside turned back to the SUV and looked into the back window.

"You're in for a real treat, son... Everyone has been just _dying_ to see you!" he snickered.

Sam wiggled and thrashed around in the seat, causing the other two try and hold him down. The back window went back up and the driver gave a reassuring nod.

"Thanks... We'll be sure to take gooooood care of this one," she smirked and then rolled up her window, the truck screeched through the gates heading towards the facility, the gates closing in it's wake.

The SUV rolled behind the facility, where three doors burst open. The backseat passengers sliding out, one of them pulling Sam out by one of his tied up arms, helping him set foot on the ground and reaching around to untie him. The driver went around to the rear door, opening it up and lifting up the back hidden storage areas to reveal a stowed away Mikaela.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"Worked like a charm!" A cheerful Cat replied reaching over the girl to grab another suit, handing it to Sam as he approached the rear.

"Okay guys, so you understand what to do?" Cat asked.

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Chapter Teaser!

"Come on! Let's go already!" Five had already broken in the back door without sounding the alarms, and was tapping her foot in waiting.

Cat and Lillian looked back to Five, Lillian going towards the door, Cat turning back towards the teens.

"Be careful guys..." Cat said seriously as she ran to Five and Lillian, joining them.

"...Yeah... You too," Sam said quietly, him and Mikaela watching as the three disappeared behind the thick, metal door as it slammed behind them.


	27. Radio Talk

Hey guys! Thank you for the great reviews! As always, I hope that this next installment is to your liking! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. I DO own Project Seven (Cat) and Project Five (Project Five)

P.S. By the way, Instead of using Italics and going through having to replace half of my story after saving a document, I'm using " -" to show thoughts. Just thought I'd let you guys know since I've changed things up a bit.

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"Okay guys, so you understand what to do?" Cat asked.

Sam helped Mikaela out of the back and replied, "Yeah, I think we've got it. Wait here for you guys and listen to the radio for any emergency transmissions."

"Right. Whatever happens, _don't_ come into the building. You don't know what you're up against, and we probably won't know in time if you get captured. But if you _think_ there's a possibility of you being found out, press this little button rapidly. It'll send us a sort of morose code and we'll take care of things from there... Hopefully..." Cat explained.

"Yeah, yeah. We got it! Just hurry up, already!" Mikaela rolled her eyes.

"Sorry... Just making sure," Cat smiled.

"Come on! Let's go already!" Five had already broken in the back door without sounding the alarms, and was tapping her foot in waiting.

Cat and Lillian looked back to Five, Lillian going towards the door, Cat turning back towards the teens.

"Be careful guys..." Cat said seriously as she ran to Five and Lillian, joining them.

"...Yeah... You too," Sam said quietly, him and Mikaela watching as the three disappeared behind the thick, metal door as it slammed behind them.

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"All right, Lil. You think you can get to the security room by yourself?" Cat asked.

"It shouldn't be too much of a problem. As long as I don't pass anyone that recognizes me behind these sunglasses, I should make it on my own fine," Lillian assured with a nod.

"Good. Five, you and I should start heading for the Allspark," Cat and Five separated from Lillian and began to walk a different direction as Cat brought up a hand radio.

"You guys find the hanger?" she asked quietly.

With the aid of the Autobots, Cat managed to tune the radios into no other frequency but the ones that they use for intercom use. That way the radios couldn't be listened in on if any of the agents or guards were flipping through the channels.

"Not yet. We're almost there. Bumblebee and Ratchet have stayed where they can observe the children safely, and we've decided that it would probably be best if Ironhide went in," Optimus replied, him and the other two driving towards the coordinates that Five had given them for the hanger.

"That's fine, we're nowhere near the Allspark yet, so you've got some time. I'll check back in a few minutes," Cat turned the radio back into her pocket.

While walking with Five down the corridors, each of them at a heightened sense because of their surroundings. This was, in fact, the place that they had escaped from not more than a few days ago.

Five growled, "I don't like this Seven..."

"Neither do I... I was hoping to avoid this place at all costs... But we don't have a choice. This is for bursting the doors wide open for the public to understand what this government has been doing all of these years. Not only that, but it'll feel pretty good to take something right out from under the nose of these guys," Cat smirked.

Five looked over to her look-a-like with a newly formed smile, "I didn't think of it that way... Let's go for it!"

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Lillian walked down every corridor quietly, as if she were one of the regular agents who would normally be patrolling the area. She was getting very close to the security command center, which she would have to think of a good reason to kick the guard out of his station in order to take the spot needed to break the security locks on the doors in order for Cat and Five to get to the Allspark.

-I'll think of that when it comes down to it- Lillian thought to herself as she neared an elevator.

-Almost there!- she almost couldn't hold in her excitement about taking advantage of the people who were running this whole scheme.

"Lil?" A voice broke the woman's thoughts and she froze into place, hoping that if she didn't answer the person asking would leave.

"Lil is that you?" a man walked down the hallway towards the woman.

Lillian looked up to see that the elevator was still a few floors away and only slowly making progress towards her. After which she finally gave a look over to see who it was that was talking to her.

"Uh... Hey... Brad..." she didn't know what to do. On the one hand she was supposed to be missing, on the other hand, this acquaintance of hers didn't need to know exactly what stipulations came with her being "missing".

"Hey, I thought I heard that you had gone missing?" he asked in an unsure tone as the taller, skinny man wearing a blue and white polo button-down shirt and black dress pants approached.

Lillian came up with a last-second plan and gave a fake, hardy laugh.

"That was _days_ ago... I was brought back and questioned and here I am now," she looked up to see that the elevator was still just a couple of floors away.

"So they kept you here after that too, huh?" Brad asked with a smile.

"Of course they did... You didn't expect that they'd just let me go did you? That would be too nice and easy for them. No, I'm afraid I've been stuck here like the rest of them..." She joked as the tone for the elevator's arrival jingled, the doors opening.

"Ah, here we are. Sorry, I've got places to go, people to see," Lillian rushed onto the mechanism and turned around to press a button for the ninth floor.

"It's good to see you, Lil," Brad's smile wavered a little as he stared into her eyes.

"Y-Yeah... Good to see you too..." she lied as the doors closed.

Lillian sighed a sigh of relief and leaned her back against the side of the elevator. She could almost feel her knees about to buckle under the stress of the fear that she was feeling. Her heart beat against the inside of her chest as if it were demanding to be let free. She could feel her blood rushing through her body.

-I haven't felt this scared since before I was an Army recruit...- Lillian thought darkly as she jingle of the elevator sounded, letting her know that she had reached her designated floor.

Stepping slowly off of the elevator, Lillian had wondered if everyone could possibly believe her lie. That there were probably several agents of higher standing who, if recognized her, would surely know the truth. She put those thoughts at the back of her mind for the moment, though.

-I promised Seven that I would do this for her, and I can't let fear get in my way now...- she thought as she headed towards the command facility.

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"Do you think a lot of people will recognize us?" Cat asked.

Five looked around the corridors then replied, "Doubtful. As long as we keep our cover as agents, and no one sees my eyes, we should be fine. Just don't talk to anyone unless absolutely needed."

Cat nodded slightly at her older counter-part, "Right..."

As they silently strolled down the hallways, Cat could hear two separate parties talking into their makeshift walkie-talkies that she had managed to put together. The voices sounded like a back-and-forth between Ratchet, Optimus, and Sam. She reached into her pocket and turned the volume down so that even she could barely hear what they were talking about.

"Hello?" a voice from down the hall suddenly asked. Five and Cat came to a halt and turned down the middle of the hallway.

"Are you two lost?" two agents walked towards them from the other end of the hall.

Five and Cat looked to each other, using their inner communications to transmit their thoughts.

-What now?- Five asked.

-Just stay calm... We might be able to talk our way out of this...- Cat replied, putting a smile on her face, Five doing the same.

"Lost? Not at all. Why do you ask?" Cat asked.

The two agents approached at last, stopping within just a couple of feet from Five and Cat.

"No one's allowed on this floor or the two above us..." the other agent replied.

"We were given special orders, which enables us access to these floors," Cat replied.

One of the agents reached a hand out, Cat could sense Five tensing up.

"Let's see the orders then. We were never informed of there being special access rights given to anyone..." he ordered.

"My good fellow, we have just arrived from last night's attack in Arizona. Our badges have been stolen, and we were given direct orders from someone above _your_ pitiful standing, to do something beyond your capabilities. Now quit bothering us and let us do our jobs!" Cat ordered. Five was almost speechless she was so impressed with Cat's quick thinking.

The two guards narrowed their eyes at the women in front of them, and for a moment there was a brief silence, both parties going over different scenarios in their minds of what to do next.

Finally one of the guards said, "You know what? Just let them go... If they were involved in last night's fiasco then they're probably not yet aware of the ban on these floors..."

The other turned in shock and said, "Our orders are clear!"

"You heard him! We've got things to do, and we can't be held up by low-life's like you!" Five began to get angry, they didn't have time for this!

The other guard scoffed and crossed his arms, "Fine... Go on ahead then. It's not like we're going to find what the higher-ups are looking for anyway."

Five and Cat looked to each other then back to the other two.

"Find what, exactly?" Cat asked, curious.

"For some odd reason, they think that Projects Five and Seven are going to try and break in here... But there's no reason for them to want to come back here... So they're banning too many people from coming through these hallways, expecting those fools to just come walking in here," he explained in a sarcastic tone.

Five snickered and said, "Like they'd be dumb enough to do _that_."

Cat stifled a laugh, and the two guards actually _did_ give a loud chuckle.

"It would be okay, though. We'd be sure to take them out as soon as they got here," one guard boasted.

Five and Cat went from a light mood to an "oh really?" facial expression.

"And... how would you be able to do _that_?" Five asked, crossing her arms.

"We're specially trained! We've got the needed skills to take those two down!" They began to walk away laughing.

"Oh you _do,_ do you?" Five was about to follow in suit and go after the two guards but Cat was struggling to hold her back.

"Besides, those little girls are just too noticeable. I hear some of the experiments they did to them stunted their growth," they cackled with laughter again.

This time Five was holding Cat back, "_Little_?!"

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Meanwhile.

Sam and Mikaela had driven the SUV around a little checking the area out, and then parked back to where they had dropped the other three off.

"You okay, Sam?" Mikaela asked, noticing his silent moans while leaning on the steering wheel.

"I've got a killer headache..." he replied.

Mikaela couldn't help but feel a bit responsible, thinking that if it wasn't for the fact that he tried to protect her the day before, he wouldn't have come to harm.

"That was something we should have asked Cat about," Mikaela replied leaning closer to him to make sure he was all right.

Sam turned his head towards the girl, "How would Cat have been able to help?"

"She wouldn't. But we could have asked her if she could possibly have encouraged _Five_ to do something. She can heal flesh can't she? Maybe Cat can't, but Five certainly seemed to be able to..." she got a thought, "Wait... if _Five_ can heal flesh, why can't Cat? She can do Alchemy too, can't she?"

Sam raised an eyebrow and looked to Mikaela. She was right. Cat made it pretty clear to them when she first met the group that of all things, she couldn't conjure up food out of nowhere, and she couldn't heal human flesh. But Five seemed to be able to do the opposite.

"Good question... Maybe the guys would know about that," Sam picked up the makeshift radio that Cat had given him and began talking into it.

"You guys there?" he asked, not sure who was connected to the radio.

"What's wrong, Sam?" Ratchet was the first to come through.

"Hey, you guys wouldn't be able to scrounge any information on Alchemy from the interne- world wide web, would you?" Sam asked.

There was a brief silence, Sam thinking that perhaps the radio had lost connection and was about to give it a quick hit when Ratchet came back through, "Very little information, but there is actually some out there. What did you need to know?"

"We thought that maybe there'd be an answer as to why Cat and Five have different abilities," Sam replied.

"Yes, we've wondered that ourselves. Did you find anything that might explain this Ratchet?" Optimus radioed in, joining the conversation.

Another moment of silence.

"Nothing too descriptive as to their specific abilities. But I _did_ manage to find information about different Alchemists, and their different abilities. Apparently, every Alchemist will have the same ability in basic Alchemy, but some of them carry different capabilities in their advanced training. Some having abilities in the mechanical senses, and others having abilities in the medical field," Ratchet explained.

"Well we know that Five healed Catherine, so she must have the medical advances. And we know that Catherine can make structures and weapons, so she must have the mechanical advances," Optimus pondered aloud.

"Alchemy seems to be quite an ability among Humans. If _we_ could adapt those abilities, we would be victorious in battle!" Ironhide spoke up.

"Wait a minute Sam," Mikaela spoke, "If Cat has the mechanical advances, then why did she just use her Alchemy to take that tracking system apart off of the truck, and then put all of this together? Didn't she do all of this by hand?"

Sam's eyes widened, "Yeah, she did... Hey guys, "he spoke back into the radio, "Cat didn't use her mechanical skills to put this stuff together, why do you think that is?"

There was a silence over the radio, but then the radio in the SUV turned on and Optimus's voice came through, "That is one of the things that we asked her while on the way here."

"Whoa, what's the deal?" Sam asked.

"If we're going to speak about Catherine, I'd rather speak through here so that she's not distracted," Optimus replied.

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Chapter Teaser!

"So it must be true then. You are aware of your own fate?" Ratchet asked.

Cat looked in front of them to see that the SUV carrying the other Humans was far off ahead of them.

"Well I don't know if this is my last day, but I'm pretty sure it's getting close anyway. Yes, I'm very much so aware of my illness and what it could possibly do to me. I'm actually surprised that you haven't bothered me about it until now," Cat smiled a little.

"We were unaware until yesterday, when Lillian had first let us in on the whole thing," Optimus replied.

"I see. Well, it's not like anything can be done right now. If you want us to help you get your Allspark, then it would be better to do it now, when we have the government's attention all over the place. That way they don't know when or where we'll come out of hiding," Cat explained firmly as she continued her work.


	28. Helping Hands

Hey guys! Thank you for all the encouraging reviews! Although, I'm sorry to say that my next update probably won't be until after this coming Wednesday, the 17th. My damn power supply for my laptop had a break in the cable and a bunch of orange sparks later, I managed to get a new one ordered from the warranty I have covering it from Best Buy... However the power supply won't arrive until somewhere around Wednesday because they had to go and order it from a warehouse in California and here I am in Indiana. I've only managed limited access to another computer, so this long-ass update will have to tied you guys over until around the end of next week. Which really sucks for me too because I have documents from another story that I've been working on that kind of goes along with this one and it's about -cough- anyway... For all of you who hate cliffhangers, my apologies for this update! But otherwise, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, however I claim soul ownership over Project Seven and Project Five!

P.S. For some odd reason this computer doesn't come equipted with any sort of microsoft works or word processor, so I was unable to make sure that I didn't make any screw-ups through spell check and all of that good stuff. So if there are any words spelled incorrectly, or sentences without the correct punctuation, I apologize. Because hukt oon foniks werkt 4 mee neway.

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"Oh... Okay then. What did she say when you asked her?" Sam was confused at first but went straight back to what they had been speaking about.

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-Flashback-

The Autobots had just finished admitting what it was that they had spoken with Five about and Cat sighed.

"Yeah, I thought so..." the girl quietly worked on her little projects.

"So it must be true then. You are aware of your own fate?" Ratchet asked.

Cat looked in front of them to see that the SUV carrying the other Humans was far off ahead of them.

"Well I don't know if this is my last day, but I'm pretty sure it's getting close anyway. Yes, I'm very much so aware of my illness and what it could possibly do to me. I'm actually surprised that you haven't bothered me about it until now," Cat smiled a little.

"We were unaware until yesterday, when Lillian had first let us in on the whole thing," Optimus replied.

"I see. Well, it's not like anything can be done right now. If you want us to help you get your Allspark, then it would be better to do it now, when we have the government's attention all over the place. That way they don't know when or where we'll come out of hiding," Cat explained firmly as she continued her work.

"Catherine, if you have the power of Alchemy, why not use it to aid you in what you're doing there?" Optimus asked.

Cat stopped what she was doing and froze for a moment before continuing her work saying, "I'm afraid I'm a bit worn out, and it's all I can do not to use my abilities to make me worse."

Hearing a revving engine speed past Optimus, Cat looked up quickly to see that he was tailing Five rather aggressively. She chuckled and said, "Five can't be happy about that," as she saw Sam and Mikaela turn around and wave at the Camaro, Bumblebee giving a honk in response and then easing off the back of the bumper.

"There, finished!" Cat announced happily as she felt them slow down and looked to see what lay ahead of them.

-End Flashback-

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"Fate? You mean... Cat's really dying?" Mikaela asked.

"I'm afraid so. Five claims that she may only have a few hours left before the problem claims her life," Ratchet replied.

"But... Cat... She's only been able to taste freedom for a such a short time..." Mikaela said sadly as she reached forward to Sam, embracing him.

Sam hugged the girl back tightly and said, "I know... I know..."

"I do not believe that Catherine sees it that way, Mikaela," Ratchet spoke up.

Sam and Mikaela looked to the radio, Sam asking, "What do you mean?"

"I believe that if Catherine thought that she had such a short and bittersweet taste of freedom, she wouldn't have stuck with us. I believe that she wants to make one last stand before letting go of her hatred of this facility, and that she has gained good friends in the process. If she had thought that this wasn't a good way to die, then she wouldn't have done it," he explained.

Sam looked to Mikaela and said, "I think he's right. She wouldn't have stayed with us if she thought that we were a threat to her or something like that. If she didn't trust us and think of us as friends, I think she would've left us a long time ago."

"Still, I wish there was something that we could do," Mikaela said softly.

"I also believe that there is a way to cure this disease that plagues the girl," Ratchet then said, everyone's attention on his words.

"How?" Mikaela asked.

"If we were to find the original woman who posseses the same genes as Catherine, we could possibly use her own blood to filter the effects of this threat. Either her, or the two people who procreated the original genes in the first place," the medic explained.

"Where do you think we'd find those people?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"We would have to do a planet-wide search... Which either way, if we were to stop this mission in the making right now and find them later, or wait until this whole thing is over, we would most likely not find them in time. But it is only a theory."

"Well thanks for getting our hopes up... Wait!," Sam startled Mikaela, "Surely there would be records of the people who gave those genes in this place somewhere! Or what if Cat or even Five knows who the original person is who gave those genes?! They may know where they're at!" Sam said excitedly.

"... It's a possibility!" Ratchet realized.

Sam picked up the makeshift radio and spoke into it, "Cat! Cat are you there?! Cat?" they waited but there was no response.

"Uh, Sam?" Mikaela tugged on the boy's shoulder and pointed in front of them, seeing two other black SUV's pull up in front and beside of them.

"...I think we're in trouble..." Sam said into the radio quietly, watching as four agents surrounded them.

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Lillian had neared the central command center of the facility. Now all she needed was a way to get to the station that she needed to help open the doors as Cat and Five proceeded through the building. She got to the door and saw that it was guarded. All she needed to do was use a thumbprint on the fingerprint scanner at the door and get in. The guards monitoring that specific station which would tell them who is going through which door would probably not see her name come up in the files as she walked in.

Taking a deep breath, Lillian walked from behind the corner of the hallway that had hidden her from view of the guard, and walked directly to the door, keeping her face out of sight. The guard did not move an inch. He seemed to believe that she was just another agent who was doing her normal shift duties. She placed her thumb on the print scanner and the door opened, revealing a room full of agents and guards. Even though she could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest, Lillian stepped into the room and set her sights on the station that required her to be at.

Walking to the station, she stated firmly, "You are relieved of duty at this station, and are required to report to duty at the station of NBE One, immediately."

Lillian knew that it meant sending the guard to Cat and Five, but she was more than sure that they would take care of him once he arrived.

The guard turned in his chair and looked up at her with a raised eyebrow of suspicion.

"Identification?" he asked.

"W-What?" Lillian began to feel warm with fear.

"The memo? It states that before any personal are relieved by anyone else, they must present the correct identification until further notice. Where is your identification?" he stated sarcastically.

Lillian's heart jumped up into her throat. There were other guards around her that were beginning to take notice of the scuffle between the two, and were also seemingly to be waiting on her to present some sort of I.D. ... Unfortunately, the woman had forgotten about this step. It was commonplace procedure for raised security risks such as these.

"I asked you for your badge, soldier! Are you going to present it to me, or am I going to have to call in someone to have you removed?" he asked, beginning to stand.

"Ah-uh... Yes, a badge... Uh I-"

"Here's your badge, Meyers," a familiar male voice startled Lillian as someone from behind her handed a badge to the man at the station.

"B-Brad? What are you doing here?" she tried to sound calm, but it was almost obvious that she wasn't.

The guard at the station took Brad's badge and then looked to it, looking back to Brad, "Yes sir. I'll be heading to NBE One now..."

"Hold on just a moment, " Brad began, Lillian was sure that the cat was out of the bag now as she shivered with fear running down her spine, her heart nearly stopping.

"I need to speak to Miss Pratt, here, for a moment in private. Remain here until our return," Brad ordered, the guard sitting back down in his chair and returning to his duties as Brad lead Lillian out of the room and down a quiet corridor where there were no guards.

"Brad? What was-" she began before being interrupted.

"I took a quick moment to check your files. According to the computers, you have never been brought back for questioning. In fact, you were found, as of last night, but managed to elude the agents who were after you with the aid of Project Seven..." he explained leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking directly at Lillian.

Lillian looked away, she couldn't stand that kind of stare, and she didn't like where this was going.

"What are you going to do then?" she asked.

"Well I'd like for you to explain to me what the hell is going on here first..." he said.

Lillian looked to him and held firm to her ground. Someone was bound to find out sooner or later.

"Look, I don't have time to explain everything, but I'll tell you as much as I can," she started.

"Go on, I'm listening..." the man pressed on.

"She's alive Brad... She's alive and she's here..." she said, hoping it would explain at least half of her story.

Brad's eyes widened, "Project Seven in here in the facility?!"

"Quiet down!... Yes, she's here. Along with Project Five. We all came back here to retrieve something of rather large importance..." she explained.

"This doesn't have anything to do with the missing teenagers and the alien robots would it?" he asked.

"Yes, actually, it has everything to do with them. They are here as well, though not in the facility. They're waiting outside for us," she answered.

"What is it that you're here to retrieve then?" he asked, almost sure he already knew the answer.

"That cube of energy... It's not from this planet, hell it's not even from our own galaxy! The robots are here to retrieve it to save their own planet, and they're trying to retrieve it without any Human casualties," she went on.

"Why would aliens from another planet care if there are any Human casualties involved? From what I understand, they could easily destroy us if they wanted to," he stated.

"Well yes, that's true, they could. But these guys are different. They're trying to save this world from being annihalated from the war that they're fighting. You see there are others here like them, but they are a different faction. They seek the cube in order to gain power over their planet and the universe! The ones that are waiting outside for us are different. They're trying to protect this source of life, in order to protect our own world, and renew theirs..." Lillian explained in a desperate tone, hoping that her old friend would understand what their plight was.

"I see... So wars aren't just limited to our own planet... What about the robot that we have in our own custody? Who is that?" he asked.

"Apparently, he's the leader of the other faction, who calls themselves the Decepticons. His name, from what I understand is Megatron, and he's the most powerful one who could stop the others from protecting this planet and their own," she answered.

"Megatron?" a small smile tugged at the sides of his lips, "Sounds like some goofy cartoon character's name."

"This isn't a joke, Brad! We're all in danger here! If we don't get the Allspark into the hands of the Autobots, this planet is certainly fated to doom!" Lillian snapped back.

"Okay, okay, I get it! Don't get all excited on me now- wait... Allspark? Autobot?" he gave her a strange look as though to question her sanity.

"That's what they call the cube. The Autobots are the ones that are trying to protect it, and this planet!" she answered.

"But what does Projects Seven and Five have to do with any of this?" he asked.

"Seven is the one who made contact with the Autobots first, and befriended them. Five was, as you know, sent to seek out Seven, and she managed to find me, then find Seven, where we were all united as of yesterday, when all of this was explained to me. Both of them are trying to put all of this together, and if I don't get to that station to unlock the doors for them soon, they'll be captured and this whole mission will be a failure!" as she said this, the makeshift radio in Lillian's pocket began to squeak out muffled noises. Both Brad and Lillian looked to the woman's pocket as she pulled the small device out quickly.

"-ian? Are you there?! Have you been captured?!" the worried voice of Cat was muffled through the box.

Lillian pulled it to her mouth and quietly replied, "No, I'm fine. Where are you two?"

"Whew, for a moment I thought we had lost our only good chance to do this. We're at the first blockade of doors. We need you to open them as soon as you can. Are you at the command center yet?" Cat asked almost in a whisper herself. The sounds of Five's voice was in the background saying things like "I knew we shouldn't have sent that old bird to do this".

Lillian looked up to Brad as if asking for his permission to continue.

"Please, Brad... We don't have much time... Seven is dying, and she doesn't have much strength left... We need to do this now!" she pleaded urgently.

Brad looked to the radio device in the woman's hand and nodded, "I'll get you what you need, just... Don't ever tell anyone that I've done this for you. I've got a family you know... I could get some serious time in a federal prison for helping you..."

"Yes, yes I know the routine. If anyone asks, I tricked you, somehow into believing that I was an agent, you helped me get into the command center and that's the end of our time together on this," she replied.

Brad let out a tense sigh and said, "You'd better get back there, and quick..."

Lillian felt a wave of relief rush over her as she talked back into the radio, "I'm almost there, just hold tight for me and I'll have the doors unlocked in two minutes!"

"The others are at the hanger now, too. You need to open them for them while I talk them through. Please hurry Lil!" Cat said in a bit of urgency herself.

Brad and Lillian made it to the command center once again, and let the guard be relieved of his duties for now. Lillian sat in the chair as Brad overlooked what she was doing. She began to type in advanced codes and access information. A screen only visible to her eye-level at the moment showed a camera of the hallway that she was sure she needed to codebreak through first. She was almost delighted when she saw Cat stick her head out of the doorway that they were using for cover, looking down to the doors as if checking to see if Lillian had managed to do what they needed yet.

Brad whispered to the woman, "It's really her... She looks like she's in bad shape though..."

Lillian stopped her typing momentarily and nodded to confirm. There really wasn't much time left.

Resuming her typing, Lillian watched as the doors leading to a part of the facility which very few had ever seen opened, and she watched as Cat motioned for Five to follow her as they walked quickly through the doors.

"You'd better go, Brad, "Lillian whispered softly, "If you don't want to get caught up in this, then you'd better turn and leave while you have the chance."

Brad looked down to his once, co-worker and patted her on the shoulder gently as if to encourage her. He then nodded and walked out of the command center, leaving Lillian to her work.

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While waiting to hear a word from Lillian about her position, Cat heard a firm voice radio in, "Catherine, we have reached the hanger coordinates and are awaiting further instructions," Optimus said quietly. He almost sounded worried about something.

The concern in Optimus' voice didn't phase Cat too much this time around as she replied, "Hang on, we're waiting for Lillian to get to the command center to open the doors for us."

"Understood," he replied.

"Where the hell is she, Seven?" Five asked, getting impatient and worried more and more that the longer they stand there, the better chance they have of getting caught. Not that she was worried, she'd kill whoever was in her way quickly before they knew she was even there.

"Can you hear me? Lillian? Are you there?! Have you been captured?!" Cat asked, worried that they were in trouble.

"No, I'm fine. Where are you two?" the woman finally answered.

"Whew, for a moment I thought we had lost our only good chance to do this. We're at the first blockade of doors. We need you to open them as soon as you can. Are you at the command center yet?" Cat asked almost in a whisper.

"I knew we shouldn't have sent that old bird to do this!" Five commented sarcastically.

"Quiet Five!" Cat scolded her older counterpart.

There was a stretch of silence before Cat finally heard, "I'm almost there, just hold tight for me and I'll have the doors unlocked in two minutes!"

"The others are at the hanger now, too. You need to open them for them while I talk them through. Please hurry Lil!" Cat said in a bit of urgency. She was worried that everything wasn't coming together as it did in her mind while she was planning all of it.

The two waited for just a moment before Cat stuck her head out of the doorway that they had taken shelter under so as not to be seen by passerbyers. She watched for just a second as she saw the doors fly open.

"Come on!" she motioned to Five behind her as they both quickly walked through the set of doors that had just been opened for them.

As the two got through the doors and turned down yet another corridor, there were strange scratchy noises coming from the radio as it blaired a barely audible noise. It almost sounded like Sam.

"Sam? Sam is that you?" Cat asked as she slowed to a stop.

She almost couldn't hear it, but she was sure that she had heard something to the point of "I think we're in trouble".

Her eyes widened as she could the high-pitched noise that she had told Sam to make if they had been caught. Cat looked to Five, who frowned.

"We don't have time for them, Seven!" Five crossed her arms in anger.

"I told them that I'd help them if they were in trouble, and that's what I'm going to do..." she said as she spoke quickly into the radio.

"Listen up guys. Lillian, I need you to keep opening the doors to the room where the Allspark is for Five, also, I'll need you to open the doors that will lead me to the holding cells. Also open the hanger doors for the Autobots and make sure they make it to the Allspark as well. If Sam and Mikaela are being captured then these radios have been compromised. We can no longer communicate through them. Cat out!"

"Holding Cells?!" Five asked, becoming furious.

"Yeah, I'll go get the kids, you go get the Allspark... Make sure that Autobots don't have any problems getting it! If I think I need backup I'll give you a call," Cat smirked and pointed to her head, indicating that she would contact Five via their telepathy link.

Five growled a bit but knew that Cat was going to do that she wanted. She watched as her friend rallied off towards where the holding cells and interrogation rooms were. Though before anything else could be said, Five turned towards where the Allspark would be and snickered.

"Oh _I'll_ help the Autobots all right... Don't you worry a bit little sis..." she laughed strangely and walked off in the direction of the Allspark.

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Chapter Teaser!

Cat couldn't help but feel curious as to why there were two cells already lit up. She walked to the large metal door of one of the rooms and looked in the small circular window. She saw a woman laying on a bed, similar to the one that they had given her to use in her old cell. The woman was curled up, her back to the wall, eyes on the floor. Her blonde hair was strewn over her face. It was obvious that she had been there a few days. Probably interrogated just as they were planning to do with Sam and Mikaela. Cat, then, walked to the other cell door and saw a rather chubby darker skinned man, asleep sitting up. His mouth agape as his snore was practically vibrating the door.

-These look like... Civilians! What the hell do they want with civilians?!-


	29. Roadblocks

Hey all! No, I'd never forget about you guys! I got a little sick after finally getting a power supply for my laptop that doesn't totally work with it... ick... But anyway, Thank you for all of your imput, it's greatly appreciated as always! And here's the next installment! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, however I DO own Project Seven and Project Five.

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Cat hurried down the hallways, watching as door by door would open for her automatically. She was, indeed, grateful for Lillian's help. She rounded the corners quickly, not caring if there would be anyone in her way. She needed to get to her friends and FAST. Arriving at the interrogation rooms, the hallways were dimly lit. Across that hallway intersected another which led to the holding cells. Cat couldn't help but feel curious as to why there were two cells already lit up. She walked to the large metal door of one of the rooms and looked in the small circular window. She saw a woman laying on a bed, similar to the one that they had given her to use in her old cell. The woman was curled up, her back to the wall, eyes on the floor. Her blonde hair was strewn over her face. It was obvious that she had been there a few days. Probably interrogated just as they were planning to do with Sam and Mikaela. Cat, then, walked to the other cell door and saw a rather chubby darker skinned man, asleep sitting up. His mouth agape as his snore was practically vibrating the door.

-These look like... Civilians! What the hell do they want with civilians?!- Cat couldn't understand, but somehow knew that these two were in desperate need of escape, just as her two friends were going to be in need of.

-These people shouldn't be here... Something tells me that they're not involved with Sector Seven...- Cat was about to punch the keypads of the security locked holding cells to hack into opening the doors when she heard a lot of ruckus from another hallway.

"That was fast..." Cat told herself as she looked around for a place to hide. She laid her eyes on something familiar and smirked.

"Hello, air duct! Remember me?" she laughed silently as she jumped up and pulled the vent cover off, as it was close to the ceiling. She quickly slid into the vent and pulled the damaged cover back over it, so no one would suspect anything.

"GET OFF OF ME!" Sam's voice was the first to be heard.

"Let GO!" As well as Mikaela.

"Put them away for now. We have some people who have been waiting for you both! As well as the fact that we should thank you for the exciting donation of two NBE's!" An agent smirked as Sam and Mikaela were tossed into two different holding cells.

-NBE's? What the hell is _that_?- Cat wondered.

The doors of the holding cells slammed shut, as four armed guards stood by to ensure that nothing would get in, and nothing would get out, as the other agents left. Cat looked over and saw that the other two civilians were both awake and looking out to see what the commotion was all about. Cat decided that this was the best time to take charge.

Punching the air vent cover off and startling the guards, Cat quickly jumped from her hiding spot and landed on the ground, pulling off her "Agent" apparel, revealing herself.

"Who are you?!" one of the guards asked, all of them pointing their weapons at the girl.

"You should know!" Cat smirked as she jumped towards the guards.

The guards couldn't even pull the trigger of their guns fast enough. Cat jumped over the first round of bullets, kicking the first guard in the back so hard that he went flying into the wall which was about 60 feet away from them. She reached to the next guard and turned him, taking control of his own gun while it was in his possession and shooting the other two guards in the legs, causing them to drop their weapons and hit the ground rolling in pain. She then took the gun out of the guard's hand and struck him with the butt of the gun, knocking him unconscious.

Cat looked to make sure that the guards were unarmed as she kicked the guns away from them and took a moment to regain her breath. She looked up to see that Sam and Mikaela were pounding against the doors with their cuffed fists, which were in front of them. Sam was yelling so loud that his face was red from exhaustion.

"Okay, okay, I got you guys, just hang in there a minute for me!" Cat realized that something was very wrong as she walked over to the keypad next to Sam's cell and punched it out, causing a few sparks to shoot out. She took a few of the wires and tore some of them, and twisted some of the others together, causing the door to open. Sam burst out of the door, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"THEY'VE GOT THEM! THEY TOOK THEM! WE HAVE TO FIND THEM!" He pleaded.

"Whoa! Calm down! Took who?!" Cat grabbed the boy's shoulders to steady him while she mangled the handcuffs to release him.

"THEY TOOK BUMBLEBEE AND RATCHET!" Sam replied looking down the hallways for a way to get to his friends.

Cat's eyes widened and she smacked her forehead.

"They should have waited!" She said angrily as she moved onto the next cell, releasing Mikaela, who had already taken her own handcuffs off.

Cat moved on and opened another holding cell, making Sam and Mikaela wonder what she was up to.

"What are you doing?! We don't have time for this, we have to get Bumblebee and Ratchet!" Mikaela reasoned.

"These two don't deserve to be here either..." Cat opened one door and moved onto the next. The male that she had seen from before stepped out cautiously.

""W-Who're you?!" he asked.

Sam and Mikaela were too flustered to answer any questions at the moment, still wondering how they were going to save Bumblebee and Ratchet.

The last cell was opened and a blond woman stepped out cautiously as well, "What's going on?" she asked.

Cat destroyed the handcuffs on the two civilians and leaned her back against the wall for a moment, regaining momentum as she contacted Five.

-Five... Can you hear me?-

-Yeah, I'm almost there, don't worry.- Five scowled.

-No, I wanted to let you know that we've run into another bump in the road.- Cat replied.

-...Like what?- Five asked sarcastically.

-Sector Seven has captured two of the Autobots...- Cat tried not to sound so angry that the plan was falling apart so easily.

-...So what's the problem again?- Five asked.

Cat was about to snap back but her eyes widened with realization.

-What are you doing Five?- Cat asked out of nowhere.

-What's _that_ supposed to mean?- Five asked, as if she didn't already know.

-Never mind... I'll take care of the Autobots, certainly Ironhide has made it into the facility by now...- Cat cut off the conversation and turned to Sam and Mikaela.

"Look, something's up. We can either go to Bumblebee and Ratchet first, or we can get to the Allspark and overturn things a bit. We don't have time for both," Cat said seriously.

"Who's a Bumblebee?" the darker gentlemen asked.

"Bumblebee and Ratchet should come first!" Sam yelled furiously.

"You don't understand, Cat. They tried to stop Sector Seven from taking us and got captured themselves! It's our fault!" Mikaela pleaded.

"I'm sure that they understood the consequences..." Cat looked away for a moment as if she were thinking hard about something.

"You... You sound just like _her_!" Sam said accusingly.

"Hmm?" Cat glanced up at the two teens.

"You sound as cold-hearted as Five! Should have known, you're from the same blood!" Mikaela shouted.

"Okay, I'm all confused here... Suddenly the conversation goes from insects and tools to random numbers, what the heck is going on here?!" the man asked.

"Calm down Glen!" The woman tried to keep her friend from butting in.

Cat sighed and turned to the other two civilians, "I don't know who you are, or why you're stuck here, but you have two options. Either you can follow us, or you can stay here and wait for someone to put you back in _there_. Take your pick."

"How do we know that you're not going to lead us into a trap of some kind?" The woman asked.

"Well that would be completely up to you," Cat replied, turning back to Sam and Mikaela.

"If you go after them by yourselves, you're most likely to get captured again. We'll go get the two soon enough. I doubt that they're going to disassemble them," Cat reassured.

"No! No, forget it!" Sam yelled, glaring at Cat, "I'm going to find Bumblebee and Ratchet! I'm not going to just leave them!"

"And I'm going with Sam," Mikaela agreed, looking to Cat as well.

Cat sighed and looked to the two civilians, "You two, go with them... You guys are going to need all of the help that you can get..." Cat them turned back and passed Sam and Mikaela, giving them a short look of disdain.

"So you're just going to leave us then, huh?" Sam asked.

Cat stopped just short of disappearing down yet another corridor.

"I'm just trying to do what's best right now... Something's up, and I have to check it out... Do what you want to do," and she was gone.

There was a shocked silence before the blond woman stepped to the teens and said, "I'm sorry, but... Who are you, and what's going on here?" her thick Australian accent made the two shake out of thought.

"Umm... Well, it's kind of a long story..." Sam replied, "I guess you're with us. We need to find our friends first."

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Lillian had been monitoring the cameras carefully. She watched as Cat and Five separated, keeping tabs on both, so that they could go the ways that they needed to be. She was glad that she had the only headphones that could hear the gunshots of the guards gun as she watched Cat take control over them. They squirmed around on the floor helplessly as she watched Cat punch into the keypads of the first holding cell and allowed a frantic Sam to rush out.

As she was watching all of this, Lillian noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She could have sworn that one of the guards there was looking to her every now and then. Even as this bothered her, Lillian kept a close watch on where Five was going, making sure that all the right doors were opened to her needs. She glanced at the other screen where Cat was and watched as she opened two different cells that had not contained Sam or Mikaela. After which it looked as though the two teens were angry at Cat for something, but she couldn't understand the words being spoken.

Another stare out of the corner of her eye. This time the one who had been looking to her got up and walked over to another man. They were whispering something. Lillian tried to ignore them to the best of her ability.

-Wait a minute- Lillian thought as she looked to another screen.

-I thought only _one_ of the Autobots were going into the hanger? But... That looks like two... What the hell are they doing?!- Lillian tried to hold her frustration in as she saw a very large GMC Topkick and a small Pontiac Solstice drive through the empty, cold and dark abandoned back entrance.

This corridor would have been too small for any of the Autobots to navigate through if they were to try and transform in their bipedal mode. The ceiling was a curved, half-circle shape, drippy, old pipes made the worn out, old, concrete path wet with small puddles. She watched carefully as the two made it to the end of the corridor, and hoped that they would be patient enough to wait for Five to arrive.

Looking back at the screen where the holding cells were, Lillian noticed that Cat was no longer with the other four. It looked as though Sam and Mikaela were arguing while the other two looked on with confused expressions.

-Where's Seven?!- Lillian looked to the other monitors frantically, changing some of them from different cameras to see if she could locate her. No such luck.

-Where the hell did she- Lillian was still frantic as something interrupted her search very suddenly.

"Ma'am?" A voice directed to her.

Lillian looked into a dark computer monitor to see three men in uniform standing behind her. This didn't look good. Turning around in her chair but trying to avoid eye contact, Lillian answered, "Yes?"

"Are you Lillian Andrews?" by this time the whole room had stopped what they were doing.

Lillian turned back towards the computer monitors and began typing special codes into the system.

"I don't know why you would think _that_," she said casually as her hands typed away as fast as they could without making any small error in the coding.

"Ma'am I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the computer console," the man ordered.

Lillian didn't move, but her heart began to pound against her chest. She was caught and she had very little time to ensure the survival of their mission.

A hand went to her shoulder, "Miss Andrews, please come with us..."

Again she ignored them. As they reached forward to take control of her arms, Lillian only pressed one more key.

"Enter"

And all of the cameras and monitoring systems were disabled, as well as all of the security systems. The whole room went dark. The guards took a firm grip to Lillian and laid her flat on the floor on her stomach as they pulled her arms behind her, cuffing them. Lillian closed her eyes and smiled.

-It's up to you now Seven...- she thought as she was pulled to her feet and escorted out of the room.

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Cat was running as fast as she could. She knew that if she could go fast enough, the cameras wouldn't be able to catch her in action. She was running just fine until it seemed that the power had gone out. Cat stopped abruptly and looked around as the emergency lights turned on.

-What the hell is going on here?!... Lila! I bet she got caught! Damn! Why is everything falling apart?! I should have never left Sam and Mikaela! Seven you dumbass!- Cat cursed at herself using her old project name.

The problem was, that Cat now had an important choice to make. Either she went to the room with the Allspark, or she went back to save her two friends.

-Why should I help them? They accused me of being heartless!...- Cat sighed -Because I was in such a rush to get to the Allspark and ensure it's safety, that I forgot about the ones who are involved in this too... But what do I do now?- Cat stood in the middle of the hallway, an emergency light shining directly over her as she looked down both directions of the darkened halls.

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"Slow down Jazz! If we make too much noise we could be discovered!" Ironhide bellowed.

"Nah! They got Bee and Ratch, That wasn't part o' the plan! We gotta get this thing and get them outta here!" Jazz replied in a rush.

They hurried down the dark tunnel until they came to the end.

"This should be the room that the Allspark is in!" Jazz declared as he pressed forward but only bumped into the steel doors.

"They're still locked! I _knew_ that we couldn't trust that _Lillian_ to help us!" Ironhide huffed.

"Jazz to Optimus," the Solstice opened his communications.

"Optimus here, what is it Jazz?" Optimus asked concerned.

"We made it to the doors, but they're locked. Permission to use force?!" Jazz asked intently.

"Catherine told us that they were going to wait until they were in the room before opening the doors. Give it a few moments. Permission denied." Optimus replied.

Jazz and Ironhid growled.

"What about Bumblebee and Ratchet, Prime?! Should we just sit here and wait that out too?!" Ironhide could barely speak without growling in such anger.

"Catherine should be diffusing the situation. As soon as you get in, you can help them from there, but don't draw attention to yourselves. Prime out," and the communications line went blank.

The two sat and grumbled for a few more minutes. Ironhide was about to contact Optimus again but just before he did, the lights in the hallway went out, leaving only the emergency soft lights.

"Was _this_ part of the plan?!" the gruff voice of the Topkick truck echoed through the tunnel.

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Chapter Teaser!

"Where are we _going_?" Maggie, along with Glen and the two teens stalked through the hallways.

"I don't know I just... I'm trying to find out where my friends are! They've got to be here somewhere!" Sam was still in a frantic panic. Mikaela was just as frustrated but she was being more distant and quiet as she roamed the hallways looking through doors.

"And exactly how do you expect to find anyone in _this_ place? Is there even a bathroom up in here?!" Glenn looked around with the other two as Maggie gave him a blatant glare.

"We're just trying to find the two guys that tried to protect us," Mikaela said sadly.

"And your search ends here!" A familiar annoying male voice yelled, catching the group off of their guards as they jumped.  
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I know, I know. I know what you're all thinking "Come on! Enough with the cliffhangers!" My apologies again. I promise to keep giving you your "Project Seven" fixes in the proper doses -smiles-


	30. New found Freedom, New found Betrayal

Hey guys! Thank you for the reviews! It really means a lot when I receive your supportive feedback! Here's my next installment! I know you're all sick of cliffhangers, so I make this promise unto you, my readers: The end is nigh. Bwahahahahaha! Enjoy! And thank you for your notes in hopes that my computer issues have been solved, so far this new power supply has been working beatifully, but I've had this problem before with my other laptop, so I'm not getting my hopes up teehee.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, I own Project Seven and Project Five... Well maybe I should be politically correct and say Project Five and Project Seven because of the order... Of course... Seven first appeared in this story and is what the story's about... But who cares... Those two! I own those two!! Gah!!

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"Where are we _going_?" Maggie, along with Glen and the two teens stalked through the hallways.

"I don't know I just... I'm trying to find out where my friends are! They've got to be here somewhere!" Sam was still in a frantic panic. Mikaela was just as frustrated but she was being more distant and quiet as she roamed the hallways looking through doors.

"And exactly how do you expect to find anyone in _this_ place? Is there even a bathroom up in here?!" Glenn looked around with the other two as Maggie gave him a blatant glare.

"We're just trying to find the two guys that tried to protect us," Mikaela said sadly.

"And your search ends here!" A familiar annoying male voice yelled, catching the group off of their guards as they jumped.

"Hello there. Happy to see me again?" Simmons stepped out of the shadows along with several guards, and two other men in suits.

"Where's my car?!" Sam yelled.

"Secretary Keller?" Maggie interrupted.

The second and third men in suits stepped forward.

"Hello there young lady, it seems as though your assumption was correct," Keller spoke in a cheerful tone, with a straight, expressionless face. He then turned back to Simmons and asked, "Who are the rest of these kids here?"

"These two, "Simmons pointed to Sam and Mikaela, "Have been known to associate with our little alien friends. How they got out of their cells, I haven't the foggiest," he narrowed his eyes at the teens as he stepped forward along with the group of guards who were about to detain them once again.

"That would be because of ME!" The familiar form of Cat landed in front of the group of four in a flash, causing the guards to back up, and Simmons eyes to widen.

Cat smirked as she stood up completely from her landing, putting her arms up in defense of the four behind her.

"Who's this?" Secretary Keller asked indignantly, as though he didn't have time for more introductions.

"This would be our resident trouble maker..." Simmons replied carefully as his eyes shifted down the hallway then back to Cat, "And where is the other trouble maker?" his question was as quiet as his previous answer was.

Cat scoffed, "Hello Simmons, I see they got you down from that tree!" she taunted.

Mikaela tapped Sam on the shoulder and pointed to Cat whispering, "She's shaking..."

Sam only gave a small nod to show that he understood.

"Project Seven," the third suit stepped forward, his brow furrowed with annoyance, "You have been in contact with these children and the aliens as well?"

Cat looked to the man with a frown, "Tom Banachek... I see you're still up and about these days. How's the good life?"

The guards stepped forward, weapons ready to attack, however they were stopped by Secretary Keller, "Easy Captain. Keep your men standing down for just a moment…"

"_This_ is Project Seven?" Keller stepped forward, looking Cat straight in the eyes, the girl returning the favor, "Why she's only a mere child! _This_ is the big threat that you have warned me about?" he turned back to Banachek and Simmons.

"Oh she's _much_ more than what meets the eye, sir... But now that she's back, we can make sure that she doesn't cause anymore trouble ever again, eh Seven?" Simmons replied.

"Leave these two alone! They've done nothing wrong!" Cat spat.

Before there were any smart comments from the other side, Keller stepped forward again, causing Cat to push the others back in a protective manner.

"This woman means to _protect_ these children. How much of a threat could someone like that be, exactly?" Keller asked.

Cat was a little taken back by this. The first time that she has met this new face and his first assumption is how protective she was of her friends, instead of assuming that she needed to be taken into custody or destroyed.

"Who are you?" she growled.

The older man turned to look back at her and replied, "I'm the Secretary of Defense for the United States of America... You mean to tell me that you didn't know who I was?"

"I'm not exactly up to par on my famous people list... Was never allowed to know about the outside world!" Cat growled.

"What's the meaning of this?" Keller turned back to Simmons and Banachek.

"Mr. Secretary, our projects have been completely raised and trained within our facilities for the entire span of their lifetime. This woman is twenty years of age, and until recently, was never seen outside of this facility," Banachek explained.

Secretary Keller turned back to Cat and the others, "So what are your plans for her now, exactly?" he asked sarcastically.

"The Section that had main responsibility over her has been dismantled. Once she's captured, we had planned to shut the project down," Banachek replied in a less assured tone of voice.

"You mean to say that you're planning to destroy this woman? _Kill_ her?" Keller was furious.

"There's nothing left _to_ do with her sir..." Banachek replied once more.

Keller stepped towards Cat, who narrowed her eyes and growled in warning. This did not stop the man from approaching her to within two feet.

"From what I hear, your life hasn't exactly been the American dream, and that's a shame. To have a government treat it's own civilians this way, not only a civilian, but an American-born civilian," he looked to her exposed right arm. "How could this have happened?... The answer to that I don't think I'll ever understand. But what I can tell you for now, is that it will never happen again..." Keller looked to the girl's face as Cat relented on her glare.

"This young girl was born on American soil... Therefore, she is an American citizen," he turned back to the other two agents, "And she'll be treated as such from this moment forward. Is that understood?"

Cat, Sam and Mikaela practically jumped out of their skins hearing this. Someone in the chain of commands was sticking up for Cat?

"Sir, if I may, I really don't think that you know exactly what you're saying about this-" Simmons tried to reason for the other side of things.

"This child, Simmons, is a human being. A human being born within the borders of our country... How this government ever got to the point of torturing it's own citizens is beyond me, but it's not going to happen any longer. I won't stand for it, and neither will the president!" Keller scolded.

Cat slowly put her arms down from her protective mode, her face in shock.

"Cat did you hear that?!" Mikaela shook the girl's right arm in excitement.

"I-uh... Wha?" Cat just didn't know how to accept what this man was saying. Was he putting on a show to gain her trust? She could read his body language which told her that this wasn't the case, but she had trouble trusting this.

Cat sighed and said, "Even if I were to trust what you're saying, it doesn't solve the problem at hand."

"And what problem is that?" Keller asked.

"Well for one, I need to find my friend. She looks like me except with yellow eyes, and she's heading towards the room where you're keeping something very important. Secondly, by now we probably have a very impatient alien waiting to get into the same room. As well as one of my other friends has probably been apprehended by now, leaving us in this state of darkness," Cat explained.

"The woman who caused this is under investigation!" Simmons pointed out.

"Yes well, she was only doing that because it was part of my plan. She shouldn't be charged with anything because of that," Cat replied.

"You mean to tell me that this whole breaking in thing was your little idea?" Keller asked, a small smile on his face.

"Please," Cat rolled her eyes, "I was trained for this sort of recon work."

Keller laughed and turned towards the agents and the armed guards, "Well, gentlemen, you trained her. I'd say that you practically asked for all of this to happen."

"In all fairness, we were barely allowed, ourselves, to be aware of these projects. They were entirely under the supervision of Section eleven which, as I have mentioned, has been disbanded," Banachek reasoned.

"Be that as it may, it seems as if you have quite a few other problems on your hands. Like these aliens, for instance," Keller started.

"Like my car! He didn't do anything to any of you!" Sam yelled.

"If I may make a suggestion," Cat started, Secretary Keller and the others looking back at her in interest.

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Five could only stand with an assortment of awe in her mind. She was standing in front of the frozen figure of the one whom the others sought to destroy. She was pretty much so ignored, since she was still garbed in an agents suit, and wearing her sunglasses to hide her bright yellow eyes. Even though she had the dark covers over her sight, her optical lenses within her mechanical eyes scanned the being in front of her. Even with the main lights out, the other guards and agents still working to break through Lillian's codes, the emergency lights and the pump systems for the cryo stasis of still worked for the being who was...

"Megatron..." Five whispered under her breath. Of course no one in this room knew of his real name. They had renamed him "NBE-1".

Five slowly walked around the figure, scanning his systems.

-Other than the fact that he's frozen, he's certainly in working order. Which means that he's been "awake" ever since he had been brought here. Most of his systems have been rendered offline in this cold spell that he's been put under though... Stupid humans... They have no idea how dangerous it would be if this creature were to be brought out of stasis...- Five thought to herself as she made her way back to the front of the towering mechanical monster.

Five stared up into his face for several moments. As she was about to look away she noticed something odd.

The eyes were staring back.

Five could see the optics of this beast flicker red. Oh yes, she smirked, he was indeed aware of himself and where he was at. He was also very aware of Five's presence and seemed to glower down at her. Although she wasn't afraid. She could never feel the fear that other humans felt. She was actually quite curious about him. She decided to see where she could take this.

Under her breath, but loud enough for a being with super-advanced hearing to hear, she barely mouthed a whisper saying, "What a joke you are. You can't even break the hold that these _humans_ have on you. There are others coming for you, and some are here to kill you even. However your systems are frozen into stasis, making you as much as a threat as a harmless newborn kitten... Pathetic..."

Just as she said this she noticed how much brighter the red optics became. She could also see some of the ice around those red optics begin to drip wet as it barely began to melt. Five snickered. She enjoyed making this creature angry. It brought her great joy to see the mechanical being transmit how furious it was.

Five walked up some of the staircases that led to the front of the creature's face. The humans used these to examine him, so Five decided to make use of them as well. She was only a few feet away from Megatron's face. At this point she could tell that he was seething with fury. However Five wasn't one to be taken back by this. She knew, very well, that if he could have, he would have destroyed her where she stood.

"You might actually be the only one on this planet to have any sort of upper hand over _me_. Which I would like to test. Until then, you will obey me..." She laughed quietly, lowering her sunglasses just enough for Megatron to have his own look into her yellow orbs.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Enough of this! We've waited long enough!" Ironhide snarled.

"We're on orders from Optimus to stand down! So just-" Jazz started.

Ironhide began to transform out of his alternate mode. Even though the tunnel was too small to move around in, Ironhide brought up his large canons, firing them up and ready to blast through the only door that stood between them and the Allspark. Jazz backed up, knowing that his trigger-happy comrade would do everything within his power to get the prize that they had worked so hard for.

As Ironhide had fired up all of his tools of destruction, the door locks from the other side were heard being unlocked.

"Wait, Ironhide... What's that?" Jazz stopped his friend for a moment as the tumbler lock in the door shifted and geared out of place.

The large metal door finally opened slowly light from the other room hitting the floor of the tunnel, then stretched across to the parallel wall. Jazz and Ironhide stayed still until the head of Cat popped out from behind the door.

"Hey guys, sorry to keep you waiting. We've had a few problems..." the cheery look on her face couldn't hide the concern in her voice. She looked from Jazz to Ironhide, who's canons were still lit and ready for a battle.

"What's the deal?" she asked.

Ironhide grunted and put his canons away, as Cat opened the door completely. Jazz then drove through slowly, Ironhide crawling out of the hidey hole as well. They saw that all of the humans in the room had stopped what they were doing, and were staring up at them with fear.

"Wait, I thought just Ironhide was coming? What are you doing here Jazz?" Cat asked.

"The plans changed when Bee and Ratch were captured," Jazz replied with a bit of sarcasm.

"Well relax.. Sam and Mikaela were taken to retrieve them. All thanks to my new pal and his buddies over here, Captain Lennox," Cat pointed to a few armed guards standing a few feet back from her.

"They managed to -uh- interest our gracious hosts to let them go, so that's what they're doing. We, on the other hand, have come here to make sure you guys didn't blow this place up trying to get in," Cat cracked a smile.

In the midst of Jazz giving Ironhide a friendly glare, the two Autobots realized where they were. They were standing in the presence of the Allspark itself.

"It's really here!" Jazz said in awe.

"Hmm?" Cat looked back to the giant cube, as did everyone behind her.

"Wait, if you're here, and Sam and Mikaela are going to get Bumblebee and Ratchet... Where's Five?" Ironhide realized.

Cat turned back to her two friends and then looked away, afraid to say what she was thinking.

Lennox then looked to Cat and asked, "There's another here?" he and Sergeant Epps, his second, along with their group of friends, were the only ones unaware of what the Projects were all about.

"I have to go find her... We separated. She was supposed to come here to get you guys in here to the Allspark, but she never did. Therefore, I have to go find her while you guys get out of here with this... Although I'm a bit confused as to how you plan to do that but I'll leave that up to you two..." Cat grinned a bit before turning to leave.

"Wait up! We should go with you," Lennox and his group followed the girl but she turned to them with a hard glare, causing them to stop in their tracks.

"No... Make sure that these two leave safely... That's your job..." Cat replied to them before turning to run down the corridors, in search of her friend.

"What's _that_ all about?" Jazz asked.

Right after this question, however, an alarm sounded. The scientists who were staring at Jazz and Ironhide began scattering around the room like scared little rabbits. Epps hopped to a computer and checked to see what the alarm was about.

"There's a problem in the room of something called an NBE one!... What's an NBE?" he asked turning back to Captain Lennox.

"I don't know, but something tells me that we're running out of time! Come on!" he ordered.

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Cat just kept running. Her mind was going faster than her legs as it raced with questions.

-What are you doing Five?!- she thought angrily as she approached a large hanger door in which was open, several people running in and out.

Cat raced into the door and looked around. She saw a few nearby computer monitors which read "Pump Failure" which blinked on and off of the screen. Cat looked around the room, seeing no one but scientists, who were rushing at trying to find the problem with the pumps that had been pumping liquid nitrogen all around the tall figure in front of her.

"Megatron..." Cat whispered, thinking back to just a few days ago when she had first laid eyes on the mechanical beast. Her mind suddenly slowed down, thinking ironically to the fact that a few days ago, she was completely clueless as to the life that existed outside of this planet, and now she knew the whole story that went around this creature.

Her shoulder was shoved by a nearby running scientist, breaking Cat out of thought and back to the mission at hand.

"Five?! Five!" she looked around wandering near Megatron. Staring up into the bright red Optics of the monster, Cat knew that something was very wrong. She could see some of the ice chipping off of his face and chest.

-Look up and behind you little sister.- A familiar voice made Cat turn around and look up.

Cat saw a booth overhead the large hanger doors that she had walked through. The windows into the booth gave a clear view which made Cat's eyes widen. Five was waving at her, which wouldn't have normally disturbed her. But next to her was a small metallic figure, with small blue optics, looking at her menacingly.

-What are you doing Five?- Cat transmitted to her older counterpart through their connection.

-Sometimes, Seven, I need to do things that are for your own good. And this is one of them. I don't expect you to understand or comply...- The smiling woman responded.

Cat heard loud clashes to the ground behind her and whirled around. More and more chunks and skims of ice fell from Megatron's body.

-Five! You can't do this! The Allspark is still here as well as four of the Autobots! They need time to get away from here!- Cat tried to reason in panic.

-No, Seven. Those silly Autobots are absolutely wrong... They insist that everyone should live freely, well look at us! Our own people did this to us, and it's time for the tables to turn!- Five growled.

-Five, we've been given our freedom!- Cat scolded.

-What are you talking about?- Five asked.

-The Secretary of Defense has given us our right to live! We don't have to run anymore! We've been given official citizenship!- Another chunk of ice fell from the beast.

-And you believed him?! Seven, you're going to have to stop putting so much faith into humans, they are dangerous creatures if given too much trust!- Five scowled.

-Five, please! They're telling the truth!- Cat pushed some of the scientists away from Megatron's giant form towards safety.

-FOOL! They're not giving you true freedom! They just want you to trust them long enough so you'll turn your back! Then they'll destroy you! Besides... The one known as Starscream should be arriving shortly...- Cat could feel Five's amusement in her mind.

-Starscream? But I thought that you destroyed him? You told me that you beheaded him!- Cat looked up to Five, who was staring with a glee look at Megatron.

-Yes, I did. However, I managed to track them down after you and I separated so you could save Lillian. I found them and had a pleasant chat...- Five responded in a matter-of-factly tone.

-You... Betrayed me! You betrayed my trust Five! Why would you do that?! Of the one person that I hoped I could always trust, you took advantage of that trust!- Cat just couldn't get her head around the idea of this actually happening.

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Chapter Teaser!

"You have nearly a spotless record here, except for your recent outbreak of bad behavior. However, there is one thing here that I see as your whole possible motive. Something that I doubt that you have ever told Project Seven about..." he rolled to the side of Lillian, keeping a piercing gaze upon her. She could feel it burn into the side of her face as she never even gave him a quick glance in return.

"In the few days that you have been traveling with the young girl, did you ever once tell her?" he asked cautiously.

Lillian gave a quick glance to him and looked away her eyes darting around the room wide with fear.

"You mean she knows nothing about you? Surely after twenty years she knows that she's -" he was interrupted.

"Enough!" Lillian yelled.


	31. Forever in Death, I'll always be yours

Hey guys! I know I know, you're all excited because this post is WAAAAY longer than any other of my posts. But the more I wrote into it, the more excited I got about posting it lol. Thank you for all of your reviews, as always, much appreciated! Please enjoy this extra long post! Don't worry, it's not the end... yet... Plus you guys seem to be pretty perceptive as well as smarter than you think you are winks

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, I own Project Seven (Cat) and Project Five

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Lillian hadn't said a word since she had been taken into custody. Of course they couldn't take her to the holding cells with the new discovery of their own guards knocked unconscious and shot. There was no place to keep her where they were sure that they wouldn't run into Cat or Five, so they kept Lillian in the command center as they tried tirelessly to break the codes that she had set into the computer banks.

"-realize that you could be charged with treason?! Or even terrorism?! You'll be lucky if you only get life in prison for this! Are you listening to me Ms. Andrews?!" one of the interrogation officers was trying to get the woman's attention one way or the other.

However scare tactics weren't going to work. Lillian had known what the consequences of all of this would be from the moment she had seen Cat run out of the facility for the first time and helped her escape. But she knew that if Cat and the others could escape, it would all be worth her imprisonment.

The interrogation officer had stopped his rambling for a moment as Lillian's personnel file and history was handed to him in a large manila envelope. He sighed and sat down at a console just a couple of feet behind Lil, and sat back in his chair after pulling out a large folder and reading through the files. After reading into it for only a minute or two, the man's gaze was slowly pulled back to the restrained woman sitting in front of him. He looked carefully back to a few of the men in the room and then rolled his chair so that he was close enough to whisper to Lillian.

"As you may know, I have your personnel files right here... Do you know what's in these files Ms. Andrews?"

No answer.

"You have nearly a spotless record here, except for your recent outbreak of bad behavior. However, there is one thing here that I see as your whole possible motive. Something that I doubt that you have ever told Project Seven about..." he rolled to the side of Lillian, keeping a piercing gaze upon her. She could feel it burn into the side of her face as she never even gave him a quick glance in return.

"In the few days that you have been traveling with the young girl, did you ever once tell her?" he asked cautiously.

Lillian gave a quick glance to him and looked away her eyes darting around the room wide with fear.

"You mean she knows nothing about you? Surely after twenty years she knows that she's -" he was interrupted.

"Enough!" Lillian yelled.

"Oh? I see then..." the man leaned back in his chair, knowing that he was able to get some sort of response out of the woman. As he did this, two agents walked into the control center.

"Is this Lillian Andrews?" one of them asked the interrogation officer.

"Yes. What do you want with her?" the man asked as he kept his eyes looking through the woman's file.

"We have orders from Secretary Keller to have you release her from custody," the other guard spoke.

Lillian's shocked expression threw itself onto the guards that had just announced this. The interrogation officer sat up quickly in his chair and asked, "What?! What is the meaning of this? Where the hell would Keller get the idea to-"

"That's none of your concern... sir... We were told to come to have her released upon the orders of Project Seven, no questions asked. Here are our badges, " both of the guards handed their government identification tags to the man, who wasn't sure what to make of this himself.

After a moment, the man looked up to the one of his other workers in the command center and said, "Take the handcuffs off of Andrews..."

One of the guards that had stayed in the room with Lillian stepped up to her and did as he was told. He took the ring of keys attached to his belt and rifled through them, finding the one for the woman's cuffs. As he did this, a different alarm began to sound. Something told Lillian that this wasn't a good alarm, of course any alarm would normally be under severe circumstances.

"What _is_ that?!" the interrogation officer asked.

One of the guards at his console was typing away as he stated, "We've had a breech on NBE one's stasis controls. Apparently all of the pumps have failed. NBE one's core temperature is rising and fast!"

The interrogation officer turned to Lillian as the woman was rubbing at her wrists and asked, "Did you do this?!"

"Of course not! I turned the lights and camera systems off and nothing else!" she replied indignantly.

"Perhaps you can tell us what's going on with our other systems then?" one of the officers directed Lillian's attention to the empty seat to which she had been sitting in just a few moments ago.

Lil scowled under her breath but did as she was asked to. She sat down at the console and started typing away, taking off her codes from the system. The lights in the control room lit back up to their normal lighting and the cameras all turned back on, the monitors lighting up with the views into the hallways and rooms.

"Someone's written their own codes on the pumps... I can't seem to break them, I've never seen such a complicated code... No, I'm sorry, someone of higher intelligence than me did this..." As Lil explained all of this she caught another sight out of the corner of her eye on a camera monitor.

After a few seconds of staring Lillian stood up and said, "I have to get to NBE one now!"

"What's the hurry?" the interrogation officer asked.

"I don't have time to explain everything, but that's where I need to go!" Lillian replied as she headed for the door, some of the armed guards following.

"What, do you suppose, was _that_ all about?" The interrogation officer asked, confused.

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"Are you two all right?!" Sam asked.

"Nothing permanent, lucky for us," Ratchet replied as he and Bumblebee were let go from their imprisonment.

"On behalf of the government of the United States, I apologize for all of this... For some reason our operatives couldn't rationalize the difference between obvious civilized beings, from themselves..." Keller said apologetically.

Bumblebee rounded up Sam and Mikaela, checking around them to make sure that nothing further would happen to any of them.

"Has the Allspark been located?" Ratchet asked, basically ignoring the agents, in a bit of anger over all of this.

Sam and Mikaela looked to Ratchet with almost confused looks on their faces.

"Well-uh, we ran into some trouble along the way... Cat's going to meet Ironhide right now in the room of the Allspark, and we came to get you guys," Sam replied.

"Catherine was not captured?" Ratchet asked, confused as to why the government agents and representatives were standing directly in front of him and were not responding to the mention of Catherine as though they were in a hurry to catch up with her.

Mikaela smiled and said, "She's free Ratchet... They let her go... They're going to let her live as a free citizen!"

Ratchet noticed the grumblings of one of the agents, whom he remembered the designation to be "Simmons". He automatically knew that this man was displeased by this.

"So you do not know if Catherine has found Ironhide yet?" the medic asked.

"She should have by know, I would think, but we haven't spoken to her since we separated and came here to get you guys. She said we should come here and find you while she went and made sure that everything else was all right," Sam replied.

"And what of Five? Is she with Catherine as well?" Ratchet asked.

Sam and Mikaela looked to each other and then back to the Autobot, "We don't know _where_ Five went off to. She wasn't with Cat, and Cat didn't say what was happening with her."

Bumblebee and Ratchet looked to each other, both in concern mode.

"I wouldn't worry about that one... When she last left here she was full of power, and on a rampage. She can take care of herself," Simmons replied sarcastically.

Just then, an alarm sounded, making the scientists and agents look a bit perplexed.

"What's _that_ about?" Sam asked.

"That's the alarm for NBE one... We should probably get to your "Allspark" if we're to be alive for much longer..." Banacheck motioned for them all to leave that room as the lights flashed on.

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Meanwhile, poor Optimus was stuck wondering what was going on inside, and if he should try and intervene at some point.

"Where in the pit _is_ everyone?!" he huffed.

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"Five you have to stop this! This is insane!" Cat yelled as she watched more ice fall from the metal beast in front of her.

"I told you, Seven, this is for your own good! You may not realize it now, but it time, you'll come to understand why it is that I'm doing this!" Five replied back.

"No! I'll never understand!..." Cat turned to look at Megatron, she could tell that even as frozen as he was, he was making tiny movement, shivering almost as he tried to move his ligaments.

"You betrayed me... Which made me look as though I have betrayed them... You set me up from the moment that you revived me!... I cannot let that go unpunished, Five..." Cat turned back towards the booth, her eyes raised into an intense, serious glare.

"So what do you plan on doing about it then? Hm?! Do you plan to battle me in your weakened state, Seven?!" Five taunted.

Cat shed her remaining garbs that made her look like an agent in suit. She kicked off the shining shoes that she wore, bearing her metal feet to all who looked on.

"No Five... You've done something much worse than that... You set me up, betrayed me, and made me look like I was involved in this... You know what I have to do..." she said in a low and dangerous tone of voice. A tone that Five had never heard from her friend before.

Five punched through the glass windows and jumped down to the doors of the hanger that they were in, standing about fifty feet away from Cat.

"So you will kill me then? Is that your plan?" Five asked. In all honesty she didn't want it to turn out this way, but she decided to stand firm on her beliefs.

"I won't do anything, if you explain to everyone what you have done, and denounce your ways of thinking. If you stop this now, I won't say a word of it ever again, and we can both go on with our lives..." Cat replied, hoping to high heaven that her friend would take her up on the deal.

"I'm sorry, Seven... I can't do that. I've been made into an experiment for the last time in my life... Besides... Your life is soon coming to an end... You won't even live long enough to know what happens after dark of today..." Five said quietly, sorrow filling her voice.

"I may be dying, but I'm going to die fighting for what's right! Not fighting for my past... This world has yet to understand just what to do with itself Five... You can't expect all humans to take responsibility for what has happened to us..." Cat tried so hard to reason, even with her back turned to Megatron, who was gaining even more control.

"You sound like me when I was your age... If you would have asked me a few years ago, I would have absolutely agreed with you... But then I was turned into this, " she lifted her arms and gave herself an overlook, "and now I know what I have to do..." Five was becoming angered again, having been forced to remember her days of torture.

"And I know what I have to do too..." Cat replied, taking a couple of steps towards Five.

Five bowed her head in silence for a moment.

"I do not want to kill you Seven... But I promised myself that I would destroy any who got in my way of my plan..."

"And I promised myself that I do what's right..." Cat replied quietly.

Five raised her head again, her yellow eyes looking straight into Cat's ice blue ones.

"Then we must do what we must..." Five was gone in a flash, leaving Cat to look all around her. She couldn't see or smell her, but she knew that she was closing in on her and fast.

A strong fist struck Cat in the side of the face, sending her colliding into the wall. Cat stood up and even dusted herself off with a smile. She looked around the room, not seeing anyone but the lowly scientists who cowered against the walls, and hid amongst some of the equipment in the room. Why they hadn't left, Cat couldn't understand, but she had a job to finish right now.

Cat picked up a chair and waited in silence. She concentrated on the quiet air in the room and waited until she could pick up feet that were fast approaching her. Swinging the chair, Cat landed a direct hit onto Five, which knocked the fighter several feet away and leaving her unbalanced, giving Cat enough time to rush to her and strike her with several punches and a kick to the abdomen. Cat then used her body's energy and clapped her hands together, running her left hand over her robotic right one, which transmuted it into a long, double-edged blade. She ran forward and swung it at Five, who moved much to quick for Cat. As she swung her bladed arm, Five got behind her and elbowed Cat in the back as hard as she could, sending her forward, almost into another wall, if Five hadn't reappeared in front of Cat, punching her hard in her belly, leaving Cat knocked out of wind in her lungs. She fell to the floor and slid about a hundred feet away, holding her stomach with her left hand, trying to take a breath.

Five walked over to Cat slowly and stopped over her doubled over figure.

"You can stop this now, Seven. All you have to do join me... And all of this will go away... Please Seven..." Five's voice was trembling.

Cat finally took in some full gasps, her lungs returning to their normal breathing patterns.

"I can't Five... I have to do what's right for this world..." Cat stood up, holding her stomach in a pained expression.

Five raised a hand to Cat, for the finishing blow.

"Cat!" Sam yelled as he and Mikaela trekked their way into the room. They got up to the girl and got on either side of her, looking over her.

"What happened?!" Mikaela asked, Simmons, Banachek and Keller fast approaching as well.

Cat said nothing as she stared up into Five's eyes.

-Send them away Seven... Send them away so we can finish this...- Five ordered through their internal connection.

Cat growled and said, "You guys need to go to Jazz and Ironhide. They're waiting for you in the Allspark chamber..."

"What about you?!" Sam asked, feeling something was definitely wrong.

"We're going to stay here... And guard against Megatron for as long as we can..." she explained in a low tone.

Just then Ratchet and Bumblebee also walked into the hanger. Ratchet looked at what was Megatron beginning to show signs of more movement, and then down to Cat and Five. He scanned both of them and was a bit perplexed as to what he found.

"Catherine, I think you should-" Ratchet began.

"I said go!" Cat snapped back, looking into the optics of the medic. She tried her best to tell him without saying a word.

Ratchet and Bumblebee looked to Five who said nothing, and barely even moved. Neither of them liked what was going on in front of them.

"Cat, we just-" Sam started before being pushed away by their friend.

"Just go!" Cat held back the tears that would have stung her eyes. She didn't want them to go, but in order for them to get to safety she had to push them away.

"All right Cat... We're going..." Sam took a soft hold on Mikaela's arm and tugged her in the direction of the door.

Keller looked to Five as he stood next to Cat. He looked her dead in the eyes, almost in awe about how these two women could be the same person from a cloning process. But something disturbed him as well. Something wasn't right.

He then turned to Cat and asked, "Is there something going on here ladies?" in a suspicious tone.

The others who were walking towards the door, looked back to Keller as he asked this question. Cat looked to Five, who frowned, then looked back to Keller.

"Yeah... You see that giant-ass robot over there? It's about to come to life, and then kill everyone who stands in his way of the Allspark... You need to leave, Secretary..." Cat said sarcastically.

Keller wanted to say something, he really wanted to know what the truth was between these two, but he chose to walk away quickly. He'd like to have talked, but Cat did, in fact, make the point that there was a giant robot bent on destruction about to be reanimated to life. As well as the fact that the other artifact not far from where they were was in danger of being captured by this beast. Keller quickly shuffled his way out of the hanger, Simmons, Banachek, Maggie and Glen in tow. Sam and Mikaela, however, looked back to Cat one last time, Ratchet and Bumblebee doing the same.

-Goodbye... my friends...- Cat thought sadly, her heart suddenly felt like it had dropped to her stomach as she realized that it would be the last time she would see them.

The four looked away coldly as they walked quickly to catch up to the others.

"It's for the best... You've done the right thing by pushing them away... It'll make it easier for me to destroy them if they decide not to go along with my little plan," Five stated proudly.

Cat gritted her teeth and turned to Five, swinging her newly transformed bladed arm and nearly missing Five as she scooted back quickly to avoid the swing. Cat had almost admonished herself for missing when she looked up to see Five looking down at her chest. Cat had made a considerably large gash in Five's chest. It went from her left shoulder down at an angle to the middle of her chest. Five looked up to Cat and grinned a little.

"Perhaps I've misjudged your skill, little sis. Your anger seems to have heightened your senses even in your dying moments... Sadly, I'm running out of time, and I need to end this quickly," she stated simply.

"Don't you dare think that I'm going to make this easy! I may be dying, but your death may not be far away either!" Cat lashed forward at Five once again.

While they were battling, Megatron could only watch as he gained control of one arm, knocking some of the catwalks out of his way. There wasn't much time left.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Getting to the room where the Allspark was in the hands of Ironhide, currently, Sam and Mikaela felt relieved to see them.

"Where's Optimus?" Ratchet asked.

"I've just gotten off of communications with him, he's waiting for us to exit the tunnel that Jazz and I came here in... His form was much too large to fit in that tiny crawl space..." Ironhide bellowed. He seemed upset, but he was glad to see that Ratchet and Bumblebee weren't harmed.

"Where's Cat and Five?" Jazz asked, the scientists and soldiers turning to see the new group of people walk in.

Sam and Mikaela looked to each other, and then to Bumblebee and Ratchet for help with understanding.

"Catherine and Five have opted to defend against Megatron as he comes out of stasis. They are going to try and buy us some time to escape with the Allspark," Ratchet explained.

"Megatron?! Where is he?! I'll take care of him myself!" Ironhide handed the Allspark to Bumblebee as he shoved his way towards the hanger doors.

"No! Ironhide! We need to get the Allspark away from here as far and as fast as we can in order to ensure it's safety! If we can get far enough in time, Megatron will have trouble tracking us down!" Ratchet demanded, stopping the weapons specialist in his tracks.

"Yeah, plus Five is in there, you saw what she did to old Screamer, she alone should give us the time we need, if nothing else!" Jazz added.

"If you're going to leave, then it'd better be quick! You might be able to hide this thing in Mission City, it's only twenty-two miles from here," Captain Lennox interjected, "But we _cannot_ do this without help from the Air force.."

"We can take care of that, we've got some old systems in a storage room that we could send a signal to them from, but I'll need you two to help, "Keller motioned for Maggie and Glen to follow him.

"We'll come with you!" Banachek tugged at Simmons' bullet-proof vest in order to bring him along.

"Let's get on it then!" Jazz transformed, followed by the other three Autobots, Sam and Mikaela jumping inside of Bumblebee's cab.

The soldiers all grabbed what little equipment that they could and jumped into some armed vehicles, as well as old army Hummers, following behind the Autobots as they left quickly. The room becoming considerably quiet now that they had made their escape.

-------------------------------------------------

Cat hit her back against the wall with such force that she coughed up a bit of blood. Five was coming at her quickly, and punched her in the stomach. Cat doubled over, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. Before Cat could hit the ground Five grabbed her by the nape of her shirt and threw her to the other side of the room. Our friend hit the wall face first this time and slid to the floor, dropping like a ton of bricks. But still, she willed herself to stand, even though she knew her fate would arise soon enough. Sure enough, Five was right behind her, and grabbed her by the back of her torn tank top. Feeling a pinch of pity, Five merely threw Cat to the ground lightly. Five looked up to see that Megatron could now move both of his arms and torso. He was thrashing about, destroying everything in his path.

"I... am... Megatron!" he seethed as he tore everything apart.

Five looked to the floor where she had thrown Cat, and saw that the younger girl had passed out, blood practically draining from her mouth and ears, as well as smeared all over her cheeks.

Five smirked and said, "You won't feel pain anymore Seven... So I'll let you die as you are now..." she then turned to Megatron who looked down at her furiously.

"I'm sure you're already aware of what I expect of you... You _will_ obey me, or I'll slaughter you as easily as I slaughtered your second in command!" Five commanded.

Megatron glared down at the tiny human and replied, "I obey no one!!"

He swung a giant arm forward, crashing lights and carts of wheeled staircases to the ground. Five moved out of the way easily, but everything else aimed for Cat.

"NO!" Lillian yelled as she ran to Cat's aid, throwing her body over the young girls' own body.

Everything crashed on them and around them, leaving a dusty fog over the area. Five glanced down to see that there was nothing left of either Lillian or Cat, and then looked back up to Megatron, who was now transforming, getting ready to fly out of the facility. Five ran up the only free-standing staircase left and jumped onto Megatron's form as he flew away, leaving the room in shambles.

Five held onto Megatron's armor easily as she looked back and said quietly, "Goodbye forever..."

---------------------------------------------

The hanger in which Megatron had just fled was deathly quiet. There were overturned desks, and large shards of metal lying about. For several minutes you could have heard a pin drop to the ground. That is, until a large sheet of metal was lifted up and pushed off to the side. The pained face of Cat looked around the room, seeing nothing but what looked to be the remnants of a tornado's wake.

"Damn, damn damn damn!!" Cat punched a nearby pillar with her right arm, causing damage to the thing. She struggled to stand, falling on the first try, but catching herself against a wall. Her left leg was slightly damaged and crooked. She growled in anger.

Cat walked along the wall, getting to the door thinking that perhaps she had time to find the Autobots before she heard a faint whisper.

"S-S...Seven..." Lillian's voice raspy, at best.

Cat turned to see the woman holding a hand up to signify her whereabouts.

"Lil!" Cat yelled, balancing herself over to the wreckage that she had just climbed out of.

"Lil! Hang on!" she picked large sheets of metal and threw them nearly across the room as she made it to her friend.

Cat fell to her knees and looked over Lillian. A beam had hit her directly in the base of her back, which seemed to cause paralysis, as Lillian tried to move, but could sit herself up. She had gashes on her cheeks and forearms, as well as a large piece of steel imbedded into her right side.

"Lil... What... What'd you do?!" Cat sat on the ground completely and gathered up her friend to a sitting position, leaning her against the wall.

Lillian smiled and coughed up a little blood, "I had to make sure... that you were safe..."

"Why?! My body can handle things differently than yours!" Cat scolded the older woman.

Lillian chuckled lightly, her lungs giving her another coughing fit as she did this. Cat heard footsteps nearing the hanger as she looked up to see three armed guards standing at the entrance, stopped by the scene.

"What are you just standing there for?! Go get help! Get a medic, this woman has been severely hurt!" Cat yelled angrily to them, two of guards obeying her and running back for help, the other could only look on.

"Seven..." Lillian rasped out, Cat looking back to her with her eyes welling with tears.

"I knew that you were meant to be an important part of this world when I first laid eyes on you... You know that... You're different from Five... You always have been..."

Cat felt overwhelmed, she was trying to understand what Lillian was getting at, "What are you talking about?" she asked softly.

"When you were... born..." Lillian brought a hand to Cat's cheek.

"Five's surrogate mother didn't... pass anything onto her besides her... bad attitude," she joked a little.

"But you... You got your blue eyes from your surrogate... No one knew why... The genes in which you were... clone from was from a woman with... brown eyes..." Lillian turned her head and coughed again, raising Cat's concern.

As Lillian looked back to Cat, setting her eyes dead into her own, Cat's body froze with realization.

"Lil... What are you saying?" Cat asked.

"They don't know why but... You got your blue eyes... from me..." Lillian cracked a small smile.

Cat sat back from the older woman for a moment, almost unable to process what it was that she was being told.

"You... You were my... surrogate?...Why didn't you... You didn't say anything!" Cat looked back to Lillian.

"I couldn't bring myself to... Your whole life I was only allowed to hold you when you were born... I was just as stupid back then, as some of those board members still are today... I was so invested into myself that I didn't realize how easily I would fall in love with the little girl that I gave life to... I wasn't supposed to be a part of your life anymore after you were born, but I managed to talk my way into a position on the board members team... And when all of those awful things happened to you," she put a hand on the cold metal of Cat's arm and traced the scratches and dents with her fingers, "I just wanted to die... I couldn't believe that I had allowed you to be put through all of that... I should have run away with you before you were born while I had the chance to..."

Cat was motionless, her body was still frozen with fear and realization.

"I should have given you the childhood that you deserved... But I was so infatuated with my work... I should been the proper mother to you... Even if you weren't really mine... And now I'm going to die without seeing you live a full life..." Lil's eyes filled with tears.

"No... No, they're getting a medic! You're not going to die! And even if they can't help you there's always..." Cat's eyes went wide as she struggled to stand, and looked up to where Megatron and escaped with Five, or at least she assumed that it was where they had gone off to.

"FIVE! FIVE GET BACK HERE! FIVE! LIL'S DYING! I NEED YOUR HELP!" she yelled, hoping that her counterpart could hear her.

Lillian coughed and retched violently this time, Cat looked down to see that the woman was sitting in a pool of her own blood, and that it was only a matter of time now. She sat back down besides her "mother" and held her hand.

"Five can heal you! She can heal anything! She healed me, remember?!" Cat knew that she was only kidding herself, she knew that Five wouldn't heal anyone who opposed her.

"It'll be okay Seven... As long as you live... I can die knowing that I've done at least one thing right... Even though you were never really mine..." and with that Lillian's eyes rolled back into their sockets, and her head sunk to her chest.

She was gone...

Cat took hold of Lil's hand once more and tapped the back of it gently.

"Lil? Lil! Hey! No! Lil!!" She took hold of the woman's chin and pulled her face up to meet her own. Cat knew that she was gone.

The guard watched as Cat gently lowered Lil's head back down to a bow as she closed her own eyes.

"No Lil... I'll always be yours... Someone who cared enough about me to help me escape my hellish existence here will always be apart of me..." Cat then stood up and opened her eyes, tears streaming down her blood-smeared cheeks.

Cat looked to the guard who jumped in surprise by the glare that she was giving him.

"Have the robots left?" she asked.

The guard nodded and replied, "About twenty minutes ago I think..."

"Is there an extra vehicle around here that I can make use of?" Cat asked.

The guard had to think for a second before being snapped back to attention by Cat, "Did you hear me?!"

"I -uh... Yeah! Yeah I think there's one... The SUV that those kids were found in... It's still outside I think!" he thought quickly this time.

"Good... Now... Where did they go?" she asked.

"I-I think I heard some of the scientists say something about Mission City! It-It's close by I think!" he replied.

"Yeah, I know where it is..." Cat hobbled away from Lillian's body and walked close to the guard.

The girl then turned back to the body of her would-be mother and said, "I can't promise you that I'll live... In fact, I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to escape this the same way as you... But I can promise you that I won't let Five have control... EVER..."

Cat then turned to the guard and said, "Don't let anything else happen to her... She's been through enough..." and she left, keeping balance on her crooked leg as she limped towards the area where she was certain the SUV was.

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Chapter Teaser!

Starscream poked his head up from the memories, his face suddenly went to looking down at the woman who stood in front of him, facing Megatron.

"I... I believe she would be of help to us in our retrieval of the Allspark Lord Megatron..." he grumbled.

"...Fine... Then _you_ will be in charge of it... I will have nothing to do with a _human_!" Megatron rumbled as he transformed and took off.

Starscream looked back down to the smirking human as she said, "Let's go then.. I have a feeling that we're farther behind those Autobots than we thought we were."

Starscream transformed and allowed the woman to climb into his cockpit, then took off towards Mission City.

-I do not know what it is that you are planning for us human... But I will not obey you for long...- Starscream thought as they headed off towards the city.


	32. Memories, Calm before the Storm

Hey all! Thank you for all of your great reviews! It really keeps me going when faced with writer's block! Here's my next weekend installment! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, I DO own Project Seven (Cat) and Project Five(Five)

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-Flashback-

"What do you _mean_ a human did this?!" Blackout asked angrily, looking over the parts of their once, temporary leader of the Decepticons.

"It's just as we said! The human you were _supposed_ to be interrogating somehow managed to do this!" Bonecrusher stated angrily.

"And I'm telling you, I _had_ that human! I brought her near to death during my little investigation. She should have died! So I'm having trouble believing what you're telling me!" The black mech seethed.

"Whoever it was, there was no way that we were going to face it... If a mere human can do this to a Decepticon like Starscream, imagine what it could have done to us!" Devastator commented.

"Do we at least still have a lock on the other humans and the Autobots?" Blackout turned to Barricade.

"Yes... Frenzy has been able to keep the others unaware of his presence..." Barricade replied dryly.

"Good... For now let's just hope that we don't run into that strange woman again..." Blackout hoped aloud.

"Hello boys..." A woman's voice made the Decepticon crew turn to see the yellow-eyed familiar.

"That's the woman!" Devastator backed up away from the remains of Starscream.

Blackout growled and walked towards the woman, scanning her in the process as she merely stood still, her arms crossed and a crooked smile on her face.

"You look the same as the one who I had left to die... But you are not her... Who are you?!" he growled.

"I get that a lot, actually... But you are correct, I am not the other woman... Unlike her, I know the _exact_ location of the thing that you're looking for," she taunted.

Blackout unleashed his weapons and warmed up his canons, pointing them at the woman, who didn't at all flinch.

"Then perhaps you should be talking quickly! Otherwise I'll-"

"You'll what? Are you sure that you want to put that to the test? Was that one over there supposed to be stronger than you?" Five asked with a light chuckle.

Blackout turned to see the beheaded commander lying motionless on the desert grounds. He then turned back to the human woman, his red optics glaring at her immensely.

"I can bring him back you know... I can make it so that you can find out where your precious Allspark is. All that I ask in return is your loyalty... You will obey me before anyone else..." she said in a serious tone.

Blackout turned to the other two, checking to see if they would give him the go-ahead to follow this woman's orders. Before he could answer, he noticed that the woman had already hopped over to Starscream's remains, causing Devastator and Barricade to back up quickly, in fear of their own lives.

"What are you doing?!" Blackout asked angrily.

"Obviously I need to prove my worth to you. So back up," Five ordered.

She walked over to the dismembered body of their commander and knelt down. She clapped her hands together and then placed them on the mech's left arm and closed her eyes. Blue sparks began to form in a circular pattern around the silver mech. A bright blue light shot out from the chest compartment, causing the other three Decepticons to cover their optics with their visors. As they did that, they all suddenly noticed that the mechanoid's head was reattached to the shoulders, as well as a large, round spark appeared over the body, and absorbed back into the body. The light quickly disappeared and the woman stood back up, backing up enough to allow movement from Starscream.

Blackout was about the scoff with the comment that nothing had happened, other than she had reattached Starscreams head, but suddenly there _was_ movement. Starscream's red optics flashed back to life, as his systems began short diagnostics, his arms and legs moving slowly to test movement functions. Coming back online completely, Starscream shot up from where he had been lying, and looked over to see the smiling face of Five.

"What is this?!" he asked, looking to see the other three standing around him with astonished looks on their faces.

"Starscream, welcome back..." Blackout gave a nod of acknowledgement.

Five turned to Blackout and gave him a smirk with a raised eyebrow, "Do you understand now? My powers are practically limitless. You all either obey me, or I destroy you into oblivion, to which not even _I_ can revive you..."

The Decepticons were rather frazzled by the woman's request, but they knew that they really didn't have much choice. If they were to retrieve the Allspark and Megatron, they would have to obey the girl's demands. But to what extent her demands went to, they may never have known...

-End Flashback-

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"Starscream! Did you understand me?!" Megatron growled angrily.

Starscream poked his head up from the memories, his face suddenly went to looking down at the woman who stood in front of him, facing Megatron.

"I... I believe she would be of help to us in our retrieval of the Allspark Lord Megatron..." he grumbled.

"...Fine... Then _you_ will be in charge of it... I will have nothing to do with a _human_!" Megatron rumbled as he transformed and took off.

Starscream looked back down to the smirking human as she said, "Let's go then.. I have a feeling that we're farther behind those Autobots than we thought we were."

Starscream transformed and allowed the woman to climb into his cockpit, then took off towards Mission City.

-I do not know what it is that you are planning for us human... But I will not obey you for long...- Starscream thought as they headed off towards the city.

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-Flashback Fifteen years ago-

A small Five year old girl shivered in agony as she laid out on her thin mattress. The stumps that had been left over from the amputations were newly connected to fabricated limbs. The connections were so painful that the tiny girl couldn't move. Sweat was practically pouring down the girl's facial features, her hair was soaked in the sweat as well. Every now and then she would make a small effort to move her new limbs, but they felt so heavy. Every time she would twitch them just a little she would flinch in pain just that much more. It had been rather quiet up until the girl could hear voices in the distance. She did her best to steady and quiet her harsh breathing so that she could listen better.

"We'll give Seven three days to recover, and then put her to the test..." a male's sour voice said in a matter-of-factly tone.

-T-three days?!- Little Seven thought to herself. Her body shook as her lungs heaved with a sob, tears forming in the child's eyes. Even as such a young girl, Seven did not know child-like happiness. She knew only battle simulations and consequences to bad behavior. Oh, how she longed for someone to take hold of her and hug her, telling her that everything would be okay. That thought was quickly pushed out of her mind as another voiced shot back at the other one.

"Three days is not enough time to allow the fresh wounds to heal. She's barely had enough time to heal from the original surgeries!" A woman's voice argued.

"We put it in her genes to heal faster, Lillian. She'll be fine. Besides, we need to test how little down time she'll need after battles that she's taken a huge hit from," another voice replied.

"For god sakes! She's just a child! Are we really planning on making children fight our battles for us?!" The woman cried out.

"Your emotional attachment is becoming too great of a risk, Miss Andrews, for us to continue having your presence here. Are you sure this is truly the job that you want?" The first voice asked, a hint of amusement could be heard.

"...Yes of course... My... _apologies_ for my outburst..." Lillian replied through gritted teeth.

"Good. Three days it is then... The girl should have full capacity over those new limbs by then," the man replied, setting his foot down on the matter.

Seven could hear the group walking out of the lab. Her mind went over their conversation over and over as more tears streamed out of her eyes.

-No- she thought suddenly as she wiped the tears away with her only flesh left arm.

-I've got to get control of these now. If I wait to see if the pain will go away, I'll probably be worse off in three days when I try to really move for the first time... I've got to get through this now...- The small girl began lifting her new limbs, her body screaming with pain in protest.

Seven managed to prop herself up on her left elbow and lean over to the left with her right side, leveraging the heavily weighted metal arm over so that it swung over her right side and dropped to the mattress. However, instead of the arm resting on the pad, it rolled off of the side, the little girl's eyes widened rather quickly as she felt the weight pull her off of the bed. She hit the floor face first, her metal legs landing with a loud 'clunk', which tugged at her already sore hips. Seven buried her face into the cold, hard floor and closed her eyes, waiting for the wave of pain to pass.

As Seven laid, unmoving, on the concrete floor, she heard a lab door burst open, several footsteps pounding against the ground with quick steps.

"Put her in here for now! We'll let her stay here to calm down for a few hours!" Seven saw a lab technician open a cell door just across from hers hurriedly, waving for the others to go inside.

A few other technicians appeared, holding another child who appeared to be just a few years older than Seven. Three of the technicians were carrying the girl carefully, but firmly into the cell. They set her down on a mattress and made a dash back out of the cell, the first technician closing the door behind them quickly, locking it. They were all breathing rather rapidly, as if they had been running for a while or as if they had just finished a very long, drawn out scuffle. A single pair of footsteps could be heard walking closer to Seven's cell.

"What the-?! What happened to _you_?!" he turned and motioned for the one with the keys to the cells to come over.

"No... We were told not to interfere with this one's progress for now... Let her be..." The others walked out of the lab, the other soon after.

The lab was quiet once more. Well for only a moment at least. Seven suddenly heard shuffling around in the cell that the lab technicians had locked up.

"So what's _your_ story?" a girl's voice was heard clearly.

Seven looked up to see a strange sight indeed. A girl who looked to be a child as well, was standing at the front of the cell, her arms crossed, and her light brown eyes shimmering down at Seven. She had probably shoulder length silky brown hair, which was tied up in the back, her bangs hanging to the very tops of her eyes. She also had several bleeding cuts on her cheeks, and one over her left eye.

The smaller girl did not answer as she rolled her face back down towards the ground, groaning in pain.

"...I didn't know that there was another one of us... Geez, how the hell many more could they have created?!" the older girl scowled.

Seven looked back up at the other girl and rasped out, "O-Others?"

The girl looked back down to Seven with a gloomy look indeed.

"Haven't you been informed of everything that's happening?" the girl asked with a scoff.

No answer.

The older girl narrowed her eyes and bent down to the floor level to get a better look at the smaller girl.

"What's your designation?" the older one asked.

"S-Seven..." the younger girl replied, shivering.

"You look terrible... What'd they do to you anyway?" the older girl asked.

Seven looked up a little at the older child and replied, "You don't look too good either..."

The other girl smiled and laughed a little, rubbing absently at the cuts and scrapes on her face.

"Yeah, I guess today's training went a little more extreme than I expected it to," she looked back to Seven, "For some reason I doubt that my own injuries are anywhere near as bad as yours. Can you move?"

Seven tested trying to move the false limbs and winced, letting a sob slip from her lips. The other girl shook her head and sat down on the floor Indian-style and crossed her arms.

"It seems as though they're trying something new... The others will be wanting to know about all of this..." she sighed.

"W-What others are you... talking about?" Seven said in a rather loud whisper.

"Hmm? You mean you don't know of any others?" the older girl asked somewhat surprised.

No answer from Seven once again, her eyes shifted back and forth, trying to think of who it was that this strange girl was speaking of.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't know anything about you, so I shouldn't have expected you to know anything about us... Look at me..." she suddenly ordered.

Seven looked up and saw that the older girl was looking straight into her eyes, reading her like a book. The older girl's brown eyes studied Seven's bright blue ones.

"As I feared, you are another clone... You look so much like me, except you're a bit different... Dammit!" the girl punched a wall, causing some of the concrete to chip away.

There was a brief silence before the older girl turned back to Seven and ordered, "Get up..."

Seven snorted and replied, "Did you not just see me try a moment ago?"

"I don't care... You managed it a few moments ago, I can see that much. You have to keep trying, or they'll force you themselves... Get up..." she ordered softly this time, her eyes looking into Seven's with great remorse.

Seven contemplated giving the other a sarcastic remark but she knew that she was right. She had to get up. Once again she managed to prop herself up on her left arm, her right arm dangling from it's socket. She willed herself to make the painful nerves react to their new host body parts. Her right arm twitched a little, as did her legs. She was a bit surprised as to how much control she actually had over them. She set her right hand on the ground to balance herself as she put her weight upon it. She then managed to slowly bring her legs up underneath of her. She slowly sat herself up on her legs and looked up to the bed, which was just low enough for her to reach up and pull herself up to. She gave a hard shove with her legs and managed to roll onto the bed, exhausting herself. While trying to catch her breath, Seven gave the other girl a hard, defiant stare.

The older girl smiled and said, "You're definitely one of us, Seven."

Seven closed her eyes and laughed a little, but in the middle of her laugh she heard the sound of metal bending. She quickly turned her head and saw the older girl slowly bending the metal bars to her cell. Seven was astonished to say the least. She was strong, but she wasn't nearly _that _strong.

The girl stepped through the bent-out-of-shape bars and walked over to Seven's cell, doing the same with the bars and walking into the small living space. She sat down on the bed next to her younger look-a-like, looking down at her.

"If you can do that... Why not just... Break out of here?" Seven asked.

"The lab doors are a bit more complex, I'm afraid..." The older girl looked over Seven's false appendages and picked up the arm, causing Seven to wince once again.

"Sorry, I'm just a bit curious as to what it is that they're doing now... You're pretty strong already. I bet when you get more used to these you'll be even stronger than me," she said in an impressed tone.

"I don't care about being strong... I just want all of this testing to stop..." Seven replied, her voice trembling with an oncoming sob.

The older girl sighed and gently picked Seven up by her shoulders, then sat back against the wall, setting Seven with her back against her. She pulled her into a sisterly hug with an arm around her shoulders and said, "I know... I wished that when I was young too... The only problem is that it doesn't stop, and the pain never goes away... It's something that we've all had to learn to live with I'm afraid."

Seven's sobs hushed slowly and she asked, "Can you tell me about the others?"

The older girl smiled and replied, "Sure... My name's Five, by the way.."

-End Flashback-

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Cat couldn't help but rifle through her memories a little as she closed in on Mission City, which even from so far away looked like a war zone.

"You gave me the strength and the encouragement to be a strong fighter, Five... But this time I have to find the strength myself... It's time to end this big sis..."

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Chapter Teaser!

Driving down the highway a familiar sight appeared right next to her, streaming past her like a missile.

"Optimus? What the...??" she slammed on the gas the rest of the way and caught up to the semi truck.

Rolling down the passenger window with the control pad on the driver's side, Cat yelled out the window, "Hey! What's going on?! Where's everyone else?!"

A voice came over the radio in a surprised tone, startling Cat into swerving a little when she heard it, "Catherine? I thought the others told me that you would be staying behind to-"

"Plans changed... I was... unable to stop Megatron..." Cat regained control over the SUV and interrupted the Autobot leader.

"Five couldn't stop him either, I assume?" Optimus asked.

"...Optimus, I'm not going to lie to you... Five betrayed us... Betrayed _me_... She's going to use the Decepticons to get the Allspark so she can use it for herself... I'm sorry..." she coughed and gripped the steering wheel that much harder.


	33. Mission City, the Storm

Hey everyone! Thank you for the reviews! And I'm sorry to say, that there is but one chapter left in this story, however, you might find a little surprise as you read -wink-. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, however I claim soul ownership over the characters Project Seven (Cat) and Project Five... (Five)...

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Driving down the highway a familiar sight appeared right next to her, streaming past her like a missile.

"Optimus? What the...??" she slammed on the gas the rest of the way and caught up to the semi truck.

Rolling down the passenger window with the control pad on the driver's side, Cat yelled out the window, "Hey! What's going on?! Where's everyone else?!"

A voice came over the radio in a surprised tone, startling Cat into swerving a little when she heard it, "Catherine? I thought the others told me that you would be staying behind to-"

"Plans changed... I was... unable to stop Megatron..." Cat regained control over the SUV and interrupted the Autobot leader.

"Five couldn't stop him either, I assume?" Optimus asked.

"...Optimus, I'm not going to lie to you... Five betrayed us... Betrayed _me_... She's going to use the Decepticons to get the Allspark so she can use it for herself... I'm sorry..." she coughed and gripped the steering wheel that much harder.

"What are you apologizing for?" Optimus asked.

"It's my fault... I should have seen this coming a mile away but I chose to ignore the warning signs and now Five's joined forces with Megatron..." Cat mentally scolded herself for being so ignorant.

There was a brief silence before Optimus asked, "Catherine, do you think that you would have been able to control Five?"

"Well I... Probably not, no... Why?" Cat asked.

"My men and I had agreed earlier that you and Five have some strange commonalities with our own race. Five wishes to take revenge upon your entire race in order to turn the tables on what her life once was. You, however. No matter how badly you were treated by other humans, you don't wish to harm them," he commented.

"...I'm not going to say that I don't want them all dead for what they've done to us... But they really had no idea what they were doing... The ones that did this to me should be punished severely, but it's not my place to decide their fate..." Cat gritted through her teeth.

"Which brings me to my point. Five holds close resemblance to the Decepticons. That being said, they are most deceitful. I was also betrayed by Megatron long ago. It wasn't something too surprising, but it was unexpected, nonetheless. It's understandable that you were caught off guard by what Five has done," Optimus finished.

"...I suppose..." Cat grumbled.

They approached the city limits and slowed down a little, both of them looking for where the action was.

"I'm going to try and find Sam and Mikaela," Cat decided as she drove off in a different direction.

"Yes, and I'll hunt down Megatron," Optimus replied as they both went their separate ways.

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As Cat got further into the City, she noticed more and more people leaving their cars in the middle of the road and running for their lives. At that point she decided that it was useless to try and continue driving, the thing was running out of fuel anyway. She opened the driver's side door and firstly swung her left leg over the seat so she could make some adjustments. She shoved the knee-joint into place and hoped that it would hold.

"That'll have to work for now," Cat gave her knee a quick jostle as she jumped out of the truck and looked around. People were all frantic and scattering like a bunch of scared deer. Just running and screaming. Cat watched as they all mostly ran in a northern direction down the street she was on, and decided to go where they were running from. She ran as fast as she could without accidentally running into any civilians. She zigzagged from street to street, trying to find her friends. As she was about to give up on the idea of trying to find them, she saw a sudden glimpse of what appeared to be yellow armor, out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and saw Bumblebee, and what appeared to be Mikaela loading him onto the back of a tow truck.

Cat smiled in relief and began running towards them before she saw several small transformer looking creatures running up to her two friends from behind, ready for attack.

"Where the hell did _those_ come from?!" Cat asked herself as she rushed over and jumped into one of the little robots, rolling them both over onto the ground just in time before it could bring any harm onto Bumblebee or Mikaela.

"Cat?!" Mikaela jumped in shock.

Cat got up quickly and jumped onto the back of the mini-transformer and clapped her hands together, running her left arm over her right, transmuting it into it's long blade form. She plunged it into the back of the thing's neck, severing it's neural pathways, killing it.

"Oh my god!" Mikaela yelled, Cat turned and saw another smaller form running towards them, Bumblebee not being able to do anything with his back turned to the scene.

Cat jumped in front of Mikaela, transmuting her arm into a shield as it shot off small rounds of ammunition. She ran to it and knocked it over with a quick backhanding, sending the small thing into a nearby building, destroying it. She turned back around and limped slowly back to the other two.

"You're alive!" Mikaela said with a surprised smile on her face.

Cat approached the two and looked over Bumblebee.

"What happened here?!" she asked.

"Bumblebee can't walk, he lost his legs in an attack!" Mikaela went back to trying to load the transformer on the back of the truck. Cat walked to the back of the truck and Bumblebee gave her an enthusiastic whirring noise.

"Where's Sam?" Cat suddenly remembered and looked around.

Mikaela's determined face turned into one of sorrow as she looked to Bumblebee, then back to Cat.

"Him, Ratchet and Ironhide ran to a building with the Allspark to try and get it away from here a minute ago... We don't know if they made it yet..." She quietly went back to shifting the gears on the back of the truck to bring the flatbed up to being parallel to the ground.

Cat watched as Mikaela jumped to the driver's side of the truck and turned back to her.

"Come on!" Mikaela yelled.

Cat decided that it was probably best to stick with these two for right now until something happened, so she hobbled over to the passenger side of the truck and got in, Mikaela slammed on the gas and drove off.

"So what is it that we're doing right now anyway?" Cat asked.

"I have to get Bumblebee out of here so he doesn't get hurt anymore than he already is... I don't know what else I _should_ do," the girl was practically on the verge of shivering and bursting into tears she was so frightened.

After a second of driving through the mess of cars and people Mikaela suddenly wondered, "What happened with you two and Megatron?"

Cat looked away and sighed, "It's a bit of a story..."

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"Drop me off there, on that building..." Five ordered.

"Are you planning on destroying the Autobots from there?" Starscream asked, wondering why it was that the human would want to be perched on one of the highest standing buildings in the city.

"No, I plan to just watch the scene from high above... You can take care of the Autobots yourself, I'm just waiting for the Allspark to become mine," Five replied as the cockpit opened for her allowing her to jump down to the top of the building from several feet above it.

"Don't disappoint me," Five gave an evil smirk as she looked back up to the jet.

Starscream growled and shot off towards, what looked to be like, a military air strike force. Five went to the edge of the roof of the building and looked down onto the streets.

"They look like tiny ants, just running around at my feet," Five gloated to herself as she watched the humans scatter in fear.

-Come in Megatron.- Starscream called for on his intercommunications link.

-What is it?!- Megatron snapped back as he was busy locating the Allspark.

-Unlike my previous beliefs, I do not think that we should trust that human. She believes that she will gain the Allspark through us after we defeat those Autobot scum...- Starscream didn't want to admit that he was going back on what he had said earlier about the human as if he lied, but he knew that she could have killed him easily then if she had wanted to.

-Should I even bother asking as to why it is that you would bring a disgusting creature like that onto our side of the battle in the first place?!- his commander seethed.

-That human has abilities that not even _I_ possess... It was able to... behead me sir... And later re-energize my spark and repair me... I had no choice in the matter...- Starscream replied as he ripped through some of the American's military jets easily.

Megatron stopped his search for the Allspark at the moment and turned his attention to the human who was currently standing with her back to him on the building that Starscream had left her on. How could a mere human destroy a Cybertronian?! His thoughts ravaged through his cranium wildly as his anger flared with his memories from just moments ago.

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-Flashback-

Under her breath, but loud enough for a being with super-advanced hearing to hear, she barely mouthed a whisper saying, "What a joke you are. You can't even break the hold that these _humans_ have on you. There are others coming for you, and some are here to kill you even. However your systems are frozen into stasis, making you as much as a threat as a harmless newborn kitten... Pathetic..."

Just as she said this she noticed how much brighter the red optics became. She could also see some of the ice around those red optics begin to drip wet as it barely began to melt. Five snickered. She enjoyed making this creature angry. It brought her great joy to see the mechanical being transmit how furious it was.

Five walked up some of the staircases that led to the front of the creature's face. The humans used these to examine him, so Five decided to make use of them as well. She was only a few feet away from Megatron's face. At this point she could tell that he was seething with fury. However Five wasn't one to be taken back by this. She knew, very well, that if he could have, he would have destroyed her where she stood.

"You might actually be the only one on this planet to have any sort of upper hand over _me_. Which I would like to test. Until then, you will obey me..." She laughed quietly, lowering her sunglasses just enough for Megatron to have his own look into her yellow orbs.

-End Flashback-

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-I will show you what little effort it takes to destroy such a puny creature!- Megatron boasted as he jumped off towards Five.

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Five was overlooking the situation below her. She was merely glancing from street to street until her eyes rested on something strange... And familiar. She saw a tow truck far down the road, which seemed to be towing a certain yellow Autobot.

-Still alive eh? Who's towing you, I wonder?- Five thought to herself as she manipulated the special optics in her eyes, telescoping in on the tow truck.

She couldn't see into the front cab of the truck, that was until it rounded a car that was parked in the middle of the road. She held her breath in complete shock.

-No... No I left her at the lab! She's dead! How could she not have died?!- Five thought.

Cat stuck her head and arms out of the window of the cab and seemed to be yelling and motioning with her arms at the humans running in front of them. It looked as though she were motioning for them to move out of the way or something similar. She watched as the truck pulled into an alley and disappeared from her sight.

Five was about to jump from her spot on the building when her eyes refocused on her current spot and noticed that a shadow had enveloped her. She looked up too late as she saw the metallic hand of Megatron come down upon her. She only managed to move a few inches as she felt the hand crush her below the waist, severing nerves and crushing her leg structures. She turned her torso over to look Megatron straight in the eyes as he looked down upon her.

"I. Obey. No one..." Megatron growled as he brought another hand down upon Five's body.

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"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WATCH OUT FOR THAT- Wow that was a pretty good -CAR! CAR! CAR!- Hey nice miss, that was- LOOK OUT FOR THAT PERSON OVER- Nice job! WHAT IS THAT?! WHAT IS THAT?! WHAT IS -"

"Be quiet Cat!" Mikaela scolded as she quickly backed the tow truck up, Bumblebee taking shots at Blackout. A final shot was taken which disrupted Blackouts own pathways, destroying him.

Mikaela stopped the truck and looked around, seeing that they had destroyed the Decepticon.

"Nice driving..." Cat commented.

Mikaela looked back to the girl and said, "You wouldn't have known it the way _you_ were screaming," she laughed.

Cat smile sheepishly and chuckled a little herself before they both jumped out of the truck.

"Nice shooting," Mikaela commented.

Cat was walking around the back of the truck as well until she stopped dead in her tracks. Images began flooding her mind, attacking her with force. They were images that she was meant to see from someone else's mind.

"F-Five?" Cat fell to her knees sitting up on the ground, her eyes darting back and forth with her head bowed.

An image of Five laying on the roof of a building, bleeding, suffering, nearly unmoving went through her mind.

-Seven... Come to me Seven...- Five's voice whispered gently. It wasn't the tone of someone who was angry, or someone who was trying to lure someone to their death. It was the voice of someone who was sad, and heartbroken.

-Where are you?- Cat asked.

More images flooded her mind, images of looking down at the city from a tall, dark gray building. One that overlooked most of the others around it. Cat looked around until she laid eyes on the same building from the images in her mind. Without looking back, she got to her feet and ran for the building as quickly as possible.

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A few minutes after Cat's disappearance, Mikaela looked around for her.

"Cat? Cat! Where the hell did she go off to?" Mikaela put her hands on her hips in frustration and turned to Bumblebee.

"Did you see where she went?"

The yellow Autobot made some whirring noises and shrugged, then in cuts of different songs on the radio replied, "Something about Five..."

"Five? You don't think... You don't think that she went looking for her do you? Why would she do that? Didn't she say that she betrayed her?! I wish she would have said something before leaving!" Mikaela was confused, to say the least.

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Cat approached the building and craned her neck to look all the way up to the top. The building at to be at least thirty stories high. She looked back inside and walked to the doors, pulling on them to reveal that they had been locked.

-Either they locked themselves in, or they all got out and locked up to prevent looting of any sorts... Either way the power is probably out, and any elevators will be blocked off... Great... I guess this means one thing...- Cat thought sourly as she went to the side of the building, where there was a very narrow alley. It was so narrow that not even a Smart Car from overseas could possibly fit through it. She looked to the other building next to the taller one and saw that it barely reached a third of the way to the neighboring one.

"This will have to work..." Cat looked down at her loose knee-joint on her left leg and said, "Ratchet made these pretty strong, so I hope it'll hold out just a bit longer..."

Cat looked up from between the two buildings and jumped to the taller building, landing on a small window ledge. She jumped over to the next building a few more stories up and then back to the taller building. She repeated this process until she got to the roof of the smaller building. Standing on the roof, she decided to make one huge jump to get as far up as she could.

Crouching her legs like an animal, Cat gave the biggest push-off that she possibly could. Her body flew high into the air, going up another twelve stories before getting to a window, landing just a few inches shy of her feet catching the ledge of the window. Slipping down a story, Cat managed to catch a different ledge with her metal arm. She breathed a sigh of relief before jerking her head up to see that someone had opened the window and was soon looking into the face of a gentleman who was probably in his mid thirties. He was wearing a work-suit, so obviously he worked there himself.

"Uh... So... Hey, how's it hangin'?" he asked in a rather quiet and surprised sort of tone.

Cat only saw the humor in this irony for a brief second before she realized that she was on a mission. She pulled herself into the window, and inside the building, with the aid of the young red-headed man.

Putting her feet on the floor, Cat immediately looked around the room and saw that there were several people there, wearing dull work clothing. Before anything could be said, there was a scream from down the hall and the sounds of something crashing.

The others in the room jumped and turned their backs to the window side of the room, backing up in fear. Cat hobbled into the hallway quickly and didn't see anything except for an elevator at one end of the hallway, and a darkened room with cubicles on the other end. Another scream had Cat's attention towards the darkened room as she then saw a woman running down the hallway towards her. Taking the initiative, Cat ran past the woman and into the room where she saw half of the room looking as if it were just run through by a passing tornado.

"What the hell was that noise?" Cat wondered.

As if on cue, she saw bright yellow optics shining back at her and a cubical wall fly towards her. She moved out of the way quickly and ran towards the pint-sized mech, dodging the ammunitions shots that it was taking at her. One shot managed to graze her left shoulder just before she punched the head off of the human sized transformer, bringing it's body to it's knees and then to the ground completely.

"Dammit..." Cat growled covering her left shoulder with her right arm.

Walking back towards the other end of the hallway, Cat was met with the faces of the strange humans as they looked her over.

"That was... That was awesome!" The man who had helped her into the building gave her an impressed tone, the others giving her sighs of relief.

Cat only looked to this man and said, "I need to get to the roof of this building, pronto." She gave him a very serious look. A look that would send him and the others there the message that she wasn't about to stay and chat.

"Uh, yeah sure... The elevator goes to the top floor, and there's a fire exit up there that leads to the roof..." he replied.

Cat scowled at herself as she walked out of the room, "So the power's on... I should have known..."

Walking to the elevator, Cat pressed the call button and waited. As she waited impatiently, she heard several footsteps behind her. She whipped around to see that she was surrounded by the humans from the other room.

"Are you all right? You're bleeding," one woman asked.

"...I'm fine..." Cat replied in a low, quiet tone. She looked at the people surrounding her and asked, "You... aren't afraid of me?"

"Why would we be afraid of the one who saved us? You rock!" one of the men replied with a wide grin on his face.

Cat smiled just a little and looked around, "Thanks... I guess..." The elevator "dinged" alerting Cat to it's arrival.

She got onto the elevator and turned to look at the button panel. She reached down and pressed the "32" button and looked back at the humans in front of her, they gave a smile and a nod before the doors closed, and she felt the elevator's initial lift as it went upwards.

For some reason, those strangers gave Cat a sense of calm and confidence. For a fleeting moment, Cat felt as if she may have had a chance to blend in with normal society... If only she was sure that she would survive this whole ordeal... Between her body giving up on her and the Decepticons battling for the object of interest against the Autobots, she was too far into this to worry about how to blend in with society... No, she had to concentrate on the matter at hand...

Arriving on the thirty-second floor, the doors opened and Cat quickly looked down the hallways, immediately spotting a short upwards staircase with an "Exit" sign hanging in front of it. She walked hastily to the stair case and grabbed the railing, using it as a crutch to help her up. The door had a long bar across the middle which indicated that it needed to be pushed to opened. She hit the bar with a hard shove and it flew open.

"Five?! Five! Where are you?!" Cat looked around and saw a small storage room just about twenty feet away and saw a hand laying motionlessly just beyond it.

"Five!" Cat screeched in a raspy, worn out voice as she made her way over to her friend.

As she rounded the corner of he storage shed, Cat could only look for a split second before stopping and turning her head, closing her eyes. There was a pool of blood surrounding Five's body, her legs curved and misshapen from the broken structures within them, her torso was bleeding from any and every spot that had gashes. Cat usually had a strong stomach, but she couldn't bare to look at this scene.

"It _would_ serve you right... You betrayed me, only to be betrayed by the ones who you saved in order to get what you wanted..."

Five didn't, couldn't say anything. She could only lie there and take the verbal assault.

Before Cat could say anything more, she suddenly felt dizzy, and fell to her knees, leaning against the corner of the storage shed, still looking around the corner at her dying friend.

"We're both as good as dead, you and me... Maybe it's all for the best... That we don't exist here..." she took hold of Five's hand and held it tightly, "It's time for us to leave this world..."

Cat looked inside of the opened door of the storage shed and saw several gallon cans of paint. Letting go of Five's hand, Cat used the wall to help her stand as she grabbed a can of paint and popped it open with her right hand. She figured that they must have been new, fresh cans because the paint was already well mixed. It was a dark shade of blue, Cat's favorite color, actually.

She, unsteadily, walked onto a more open area of the roof and carefully began pouring it into a large circle. That being done, she went back to the shed to grab the other two cans and as she was walking back she heard several "boom" noises from down the street. She looked over the top of the building and saw the image of Optimus lying on the ground after, what seemed to be, a rather large fall. Cat was about to worry when she saw a hand that was curled up to his chest move, revealing a shaken Sam. Cat sighed in relief at the sight of them being okay. She would have liked to help them, but now she was neither in any shape or had any strength to do so.

Cat, regretfully, turned back to what she was doing, going back to the circled of paint that she had made on the rocky top of the roof. She carefully walked within the circle, pouring the paint into different, odd shapes. Triangular shapes and swirls, mainly. Finishing up on the last can of paint and throwing it aside, Cat walked over to the bloody image of Five and bent over, scooping her up. Five's blood-ridden eyes looked up to Cat in a questioning look.

Cat laid her friend out in the middle of the circle of paint carefully and knelt down in the circle as well.

"At least this way... There will be nothing... left of us... to pick up after..." she looked into the eyes of Five with tears stinging her own and continued, "I can't heal us Five... And neither can you now... you're too weak and you're dying... just the same as me..."

Five's eyes widened and she made to try and shake her head, but could only manage a slight twitch in her neck. Her harsh breathing in her chest increased as she reached to put a hand on Cat's cheek. Cat closed her eyes, warm tears falling from her eyes onto Five's soft hand. Before Cat had realized it, Five had taken her hand back and brought her other one up as well, slightly clapping them together, then dropping them to the ground. Cat's own eyes went wide in surprise as she saw the transmutation circle that she had made begin to change forms and twist into a different shape. When the blue light that had formed from Five's change had gone away, Cat looked at the circle and looked at Five with a questioning face.

"But... That would never work... You know that it... can't work!" Cat tried to make sense of what Five was doing.

"NO!" Cat's head twisted back to where she had heard Optimus yell, and felt a strange rumble of power beneath her.

Just then, Five coughed and blood splattered from her mouth, Cat turned back to Five and watched as her older sibling took one last, long, deep inhale. Her chest then settled and her eyes went into the back of her head.

Five was dead.

Cat's eyes lowered to Five's facial features as she reached a hand up to move some of the blood-soaked hair out of Five's face.

"I don't know... if I can do it... I don't think I even... have the strength..." Cat wondered aloud.

Just as she had said this, Cat heard a noise as if something had dropped right next to her, just outside of the transmutation circle. Looking over to it, she saw that it looked to be a piece of a strange, black metal, which was still smoking and blue sparks making it twitch. It was only about the size of a marble.

Picking the metal piece up in her left hand, Cat brought it up to her face to get a better look at it. However, as she did this, she felt a powerful sting from the object, like a burn. She flipped her wrist in reaction to this pain, but it didn't go away. She looked back to her hand and saw that the piece of metal was fusing into her palm, disappearing into her skin. She turned her hand over back and forth, looking to her palm and the back of her hand to see where the metal had gone. Before she knew what was happening, blue sparks formed all around her arm and pain shot up from her arm into her torso, shooting up and down her spine and into her legs, as well as her head. Cat's face looked up to the sky as she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Images began to assault her mind. It was as they say it was. Her life was flashing before her eyes. Memories from her first surgery, to seeing Five's smile for the first time ever, to her training. And then it went to the more recent. Saving Bumblebee as well as Sam and Mikaela from Sector Seven that dark night in Tranquility, as well as the moment in the desert, when she had first laid eyes on all five of the Autobots. She also saw her first battle with the Decepticons, and the laughter that Sam and Mikaela had shared at seeing Cat taking her first taste of chocolate. The memory of holding Lillian/her mother, after watching her pass sunk into her mind as well. All of these images came back to her as she began to feel her soul slip away.

-Good...bye...- Cat's last thoughts tugged at her mind as she finally let go.

The transmutation circle began to activate, a bright gold light shot up into the air, the building shook with the power that all of this was causing.

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Chapter Teaser!

After Optimus finished giving a short mourning over the destruction of the Allspark, as well as feeling relief over Megatron's death, he and Sam felt the ground shake and looked down the street, seeing a gold light rushing over Mikaela and the other Autobots.

"Mikaela! Bumblebee!!" Sam shouted, making a run for them.

Optimus was right behind the boy, trying to scan the area for his men, but his scans were inconclusive. The light was just too overpowering for his optics to make sense of anything.

Last Chapter Title: A Wish from the Grave

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This has GOT to be the most HORRIBLE cliff hanger that I've ever written huh?? I know I know, it makes me mad when others leave a cliff hanger, so believe me, I understand the need to scratch the itch of finding out the resolve. Just hang in there for me! I've got to make sure that it's perfect!

Yeah, so as you may have noticed I took the original ending from the movie and put a couple of twists on it with my own story-line. I figured that since most, if not all, of you have seen the movie so I didn't need to go into the details of what happened with the Autobots, and just sort of put my own ending to it.

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**Extra Teaser! Coming Soon! Project Seven: Soul Reconnaissance**

**-Squeals in excitement!-**


	34. Sorting Things Out

Okay guys, here's the deal. This story will end in a weekend bang! I've finished the story, of course, and I know I promised you the last chapter this posting, but I needed to spread it out a little in two different posts. I'd probably have updated sooner but I've been so busy with trying to finish this, and plus I work for UPS and I've been doing driver's helper, as well as working on Saturday later on today to get some time and half in. But enough about that. The deal is that I absolutely WILL post the final chapter tomorrow (Sunday). But I'm going to give you one last shabang of a cliffhanger.

-Sees angry reviewers look with fire in their eyes and backs up-

O.o; Don't worry! I promise that tomorrow you will receive all of the answers that you've been looking forward to! So keep calm!

Thank you to all of my faithful readers who have been reading and commenting on this story since the very beginning. I'll have more detailed thank you's next chapter as well.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, however I DO own Cat and Five.

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Mikaela was driving slowly along side of Ironhide and Ratchet, Ironhide was holding two portions of their comrade's body, Jazz, and Mikaela who was still towing Bumblebee on the flatbed. They were walking by a tall, grayish building when they felt the ground rumble and shake. 

"What's going on?!" Mikaela hit the brakes and yelled out to the Autobots.

Ironhide and Ratchet looked immediately up to the top of the tall building that they were in front of, and saw a bright, gold light begin to pour over the sides, enveloping the building as it made it's way down to the street level. They backed up some fearing of what this gold light was about to do, but it quickly overtook all of them.

---------------------------------------- -------------

After Optimus finished giving a short mourning over the destruction of the Allspark, as well as feeling relief over Megatron's death, he and Sam felt the ground shake and looked down the street, seeing a gold light rushing over Mikaela and the other Autobots.

"Mikaela! Bumblebee!!" Sam shouted, making a run for them.

Optimus was right behind the boy, trying to scan the area for his men, but his scans were inconclusive. The light was just too overpowering for his optics to make sense of anything.

Arriving close to the scene, the light was still shining with great power. Optimus grabbed Sam before the boy foolishly jumped in without knowing what was going on.

"No! Mikaela!" Sam yelled reaching towards the light before it overpowered them, Sam shielding his eyes, and Optimus covering his optics.

The light finally dissipated, and Sam looked back to see the group opening their own eyes and optics.

"T-they're alive!" Sam declared happily as Optimus set him back down on the ground.

Sam ran to Mikaela, who was slowly getting out of the tow truck looking around with an astonished look on her face. He grabbed her by the arms and looked her over.

"You all right? You okay?" he asked.

"..Y-Yeah... Fine... I feel fine," she looked around and then finally back to Sam.

The tow truck's front end suddenly went a few feet off of the ground, then back on the ground with a hard "Thump". Sam and Mikaela jumped back away from it and looked to the back where they saw Bumblebee... stand up on his feet.

"Wait a minute... I thought your legs... but... Who fixed you?!" Sam was confused.

"Jazz?" Ironhide asked, they all turned to him, to see that he was no longer carrying parts of Jazz, but he was holding his entire body as a whole. He put his friend down on the ground and they all waited for just a few seconds.

Jazz's subroutine systems kicked in, putting him back online as his blue optics flashed. He shot up and began looking around wildly.

"Where's Megatron?!" Jazz had awoken thinking that he was still in battle, but a hand went to his shoulder and he turned to see Optimus shining a smile down at him.

"It's all right now Jazz. Megatron is dead, " this seemed to calm Jazz as he looked around at the group.

"But... How is all of this possible?" Ratchet asked, turning to Optimus, who looked up to the top of the building.

They all looked up to the building as well for a moment before Optimus looked to his group.

"Where is Catherine?" he asked.

Everyone looked around, but saw nothing.

"She was with us a little while ago but... She ran off without saying a word..." Mikaela looked to Sam with sad eyes.

"Wait... Wait I thought that Cat and Five were back at the Hoover Dam, how is it that she was here?" Sam asked, even more confused.

"I encountered her on the way here. She had managed to take control of the vehicle that the two of you were in when you were found by the government. She then informed me that she had been betrayed by Five, and was unable to defeat her or contain Megatron," Optimus replied.

"Yeah, that's what she told me too. She was with me and Bumblebee for a little while, actually she saved us from some of those things that formed from the Allspark's energy, and she just disappeared," Mikaela added.

Bumblebee looked up to the tall building and said, "I believe that she is gone..."

The group looked to the young Autobot in shock and Sam asked, "So _now_ you talk?!"

"He's right, "Ratchet agreed, "Catherine has a very unique chemical signature, and as far as my sensors can work, I cannot locate her."

"Then I suppose she was another casualty of war... A new comrade lost..." Optimus looked down at his team as well as looking down at the newly arriving team of Captain Lennox, "But we gained some new ones in the process. Thank you all..." he said gratefully.

The captain and his team smiled wearily up at the Autobots. Before they could say anything more, they heard the sounds of vehicles driving down a street, and one of the men spotted a news truck drive slowly down a street that intersected the one that they were on.

Captain Lennox looked up to Optimus and said, "I think we'd better get you guys out of here before you're all on the evening news!"

"Good idea. Autobots, roll out!" Optimus ordered.

The special ops team, as well as Sam and Mikaela watched in awe as the five robots transformed right in front of their eyes. It was definitely a sight that they would never get used to. The two teens piled in Bumblebee's cab quickly, as Captain Lennox and his group packed into Ironhide, some sitting in his cab, and others crammed into the truck bed. Within seconds, the group was on their way out of the city.

---------------------------------------- ------------------------

It had been three days since the battle at Mission City, and so far everyone was still just reuniting with their families, the government having released Sam's parents and Mojo from their imprisonment. As well as giving Mikaela's mom a rather impressive story to back up the reason why she had been gone from home for so long. Of course, the Autobots decided to stick with Sam and Mikaela and stay hidden amongst the humans. Ratchet was still at a loss of words as to how it was that the three of his comrades, as well as Mikaela had been healed. It was a mystery that they had no way of explaining. Sam had aquired some bruised ribs and some scratches, but other than that he was fine. Plus, after that whole experience of the government separating them, and taking apart his mom's flower garden, Sam had no choice but to tell his parents the entire truth. 

---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---  
Flashback

"So what did they do to you?! You didn't tell them anything did you because-"

"Dad-"

"You know I called a laywer, and he said that unless there was some absolute, rock solid proof-

"Dad stop-"

"That we've got a real strong case of wrongful imprisonment and-"

"DAD! Chill! I-uh... I need to tell you a few things, and I think that you're going to need to-uh- sit down and relax while I tell you all of it," Sam tried to interest his parents into sitting down on the couch while he talked to them about the past few days.

"We don't need to _relax_ Sam! We need to take action now! We need to-"

"What the hell is that?!" Sam's mom shouted pointing out into the backyard.

Sam whirled around and saw Bumblebee had transformed and was staring at them through the window.

"You were - You were supposed to stay _put_ until I came and got you! What are you doing?! Are you trying to give my parents a heart attack surprising them like- Mom! Where are you going with that?!" Sam followed his mom out of the back door as she flew outside, baseball bat in hand.

"Sam! Call the FBI Sam!," She turned to the yellow Autobot who was standing tall, looking down at the female human, "Get out of here! Stay away from my family you overgrown toaster!"

"Mom! Mom stop! Mom!" Sam tried to reason with his mother as she managed to land a couple of hits on the poor yellow mech.

Mojo was standing on the back porch barking his little head off, while Sam's dad could only stare out of the back window in complete shock, his mouth agape.

"Mom! Stop, you're hurting him!" Sam got in between his rampaging mother and Bumblebee, putting his arms out as if to protect the larger being.

"Get out of the way Sam! That thing's dangerous!" The enraged woman warned.

Before Sam could rebutle a loud 'BOOM' shook the backyard, and Sam noticed that his mom had dropped the baseball bat, her eyes widened, and her jaw practically dropped to the ground as well. Sam turned and saw Optimus stepping into the backyard, large and in charge as his blue optics glared down at Sam's mom.

"Oh my god... there's...more..." Sam's mom dropped to the ground as she blacked out. Sam turned and looked back to the Autobot leader as he heard Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide also transforming, the three looking down at the scene. Bumblebee was rubbing the sore dents in his leg armor.

"Can I terminate her _now_ Optimus?!" Ironhide asked eagerly.

Sam looked back to his mom, then back to the Autobots and said, "I SWEAR I'M GETTING YOU GUYS A WATCH SO YOU'LL KNOW WHAT FIVE MINUTES IS!"

End Flashback  
---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ------

They were, to say the least, shocked and a little unnerved to think that their son's car was a nearly twenty foot tall robot alien. But they were getting used to the idea a little more every day, at least. 

The sun had set on the third day, and it was already dark at the lookout., where the Autobots as well as Sam and Mikaela were convened. Ironhide had just gotten back that morning from taking a trip to take Captain Lennox and Sargent Epps home, and Optimus had just finished his message to send out into space, in hopes that other Autobots would pick it up and find them.

"I can't believe we have to go back to school tomorrow... I mean, we _just_ started to relax, and now we have to go back _there_ of all places!" Sam whined.

"It'll be all right Sam. I mean, I'll be there with you," Mikaela smiled to her new boyfriend.

Sam smirked back at the girl and they shared a brief, but passionate kiss, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Ratchet chuckled at the two teens' behavior, and then turned to Ironhide.

"So has the American government found anything in connection to that strange golden spectrum that we encountered?" the medic asked.

Ironhide, who was relaxed to the point of near recharge, was broken out of his thoughts from Ratchet's question.

"What? Oh right! Yeah, actually. Before I left Captain Lennox received a transmission from the government saying that they had found three different blood types on the roof of that building. Two they've identified, one is completely unknown," he replied.

The other four Autobots, as well as Sam and Mikaela turned towards Ironhide as he spoke.

"Well then? Who does the blood belong to?" Optimus asked.

Ironhide shifted a quick glance over to the children as he thought about whether or not they should hear what it was that he was going to say. He sighed as he realized that one way or another, they would most likely find out.

"The two identified were Five and... Cat..." he said regretfully.

Sam and Mikaela threw a shocked expression at the weapons specialist, and even though he was a hardened soldier of war, such a pained look coming from two human children made him wince with sympathy. The other Autobots felt the same.

"For some reason, I hadn't doubted that those two were involved in it. Only beings with extraordinary powers could have created such an act," Ratchet commented.

"But that's good right?" Mikaela spoke up, the others turning to look at her and Sam who were sitting under a lone tree that sat near the edge of the lookout.

"I'm slightly confused, what part of that was good?" Optimus asked.

"Well... I mean they didn't find Cat's body... So that means she could still be out there somwhere!" she reasoned.

The Autobots looked to one another, unsure if Mikaela was thinking of a good reason, or if she were trying to find an excuse to believe that Cat was alive somewhere, giving herself and Sam some sort of false hopes.

"Mikaela," Jazz began softly, "Don't you think tha' if Cat were alive, she'd 'ave come outta hiding by now?"

"Well... I... I guess maybe not..." she looked away from the mechs and put her head on Sam's shoulder, on the verge of tears over the subject.

"Oh! I guess that's another thing about what they found on the rooftop, "Ironhide remembered.

Everyone looked back to him once more, "Well, go on Ironhide. Tell us," Ratchet encouraged.

"They found a circle of fresh paint next to a small storage shed up there. They couldn't tell what exactly it was, but they think that it was, what Alchemists call, a "Transmutation circle". Their specialists might have been able to tell what exactly it was if it weren't for the fact that all three blood types were found, puddled amongst the paint, making it impossible to tell what was what. Although they think that it was some sort of destruction circle. One that would vaporize anything within it's confines," Ironhide explained.

"Vaporize? So either Cat, or Five could have walked into that circle and been killed that way?" Sam asked softly, hugging the arm he had around Mikaela tighter.

Ironhide nodded, "It is very possible that one or both of them had been destroyed that way, although, it's as I said... There's no way to tell whether or not they met their fates that way. There's blood all over that rooftop, proving many different theories. It'll most likely be weeks, or even months, before the government special authorities discovers what really happened."

"Well, we know that Catherine had become too weakened to use any sort of major Alchemy motives. So it must have been Five who created the circle," Ratchet reasoned.

"Okay, but what about that third blood trail? Who does _that_ belong to?" Sam asked.

"They don't know... Lennox said that it would probably take weeks, or even months before they discover who it belonged to," the weapons specialist sighed.

"So that's it then... They're both dead.." Mikaela concluded.

Optimus noticed the gloomy looks on everyone and said, "Catherine may have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our survival. And because of that, we shouldn't be mourning over her death, we should be celebrating the life that she has saved. Just as we have made the same sacrifice with the destruction of the Allspark. If Sam had not sacrificed the Allspark, Megatron would have most likely taken control over it and destroyed the universe little by little. Just the same, if Catherine had not destroyed Five, Five might have tried taking over this world and killed many innoccents."

Sam gave a light laugh/scoff and said, "No sacrifice... no victory..." as if to confirm that the old family motto still held some major value in it's point.

There was a passing quiet as a breeze lightly whispered through the hills of the lookout.

"So what about Barricade and Starscream? Any word on where they are?" Sam asked.

"I'm afraid not... What worries me the most is that if they're out there and alive, so they may have gone for reinforcements..." Ratchet replied.

Another passing silence before Mikaela sat up and looked at the sky, then to her watch.

"Well it's nine-thirty... We better be going for tonight..." she said with a short sigh.

Sam looked up to Bumblebee and asked, "You ready to go, big guy?"

Even though Bumblebee enjoyed the closeness of the humans, every now and then he needed to stretch his legs out of his car alternate mode. But hearing Sam ask if he was ready to leave, he nodded and transformed into his new Camaro form, opening his driver and passenger doors for them.

"We'll see you guys later!" Sam and Mikaela waved to their Autobot friends as they got into Bumblebee's cab and sped off to their dwellings.

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For a moment it was the feeling of being complete, like floating on a cloud. It was as if she were calmly napping, all of her fears and troubles had been lifted. She didn't want to be disturbed, for once she wished to just stay this way forever.

"Wake up Seven... Open your eyes my little sister..." It wasn't the same rough voice that she had heard on her more recent travels. It was firm, yet soft and comforting.

Cat slowly opened her eyes, a bright while light surrounded her as she floated. She gently turned her head from side to side, noticing that she was completely surrounded by this light. It seemed to go on forever every which of way, even above and below her.

"Seven, I'm so glad to see you," Cat turned to her left and saw Five floating nearby her in the same manner. 

"Five? What's going on?" Cat asked. She found herself still completely calm, her voice was soothing even to herself. And then she noticed something.

"Five... Your eyes... They're brown again. How is this so?" Cat asked.

As if on cue, a double-door walkway appeared out of nowhere. It was about fifty feet away, but it was still close enough to make out all of it's features. It appeared to be made of dark wood, laced with gold trim and alchemic spells cast upon it.

"What is this?" Cat asked.

Five turned to the doorway and said, "It's the path to the next life. It's the door that every Alchemist stands before to be judged in death. It... It gave me back my old body. The one that I was born with! I can't believe it myself but... Here we are!" Five turned back to Cat with a smile... A genuine smile. One that showed that she was feeling true happiness.

Cat floated forward a bit towards the doors and asked, "Does that mean it's my turn to be judged?"

Before she went even two feet, Five grabbed Cat by the front of her tank top and stopped her from going any further.

"...I was told to give you a message before you went..." Five looked down and away from Cat.

"What is it?"

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It was the morning of the fourth day, and Secretary Keller had finally gotten back to his own office, sitting down for the first time in almost two weeks since this whole ordeal had begun. He leaned back in his chair and looked up to the ceiling feeling a bit like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, now that national security was safe once again. Although there were still unresolved issues that still needed to be dealt with. Thinking about this part made the secretary frown. He looked down to his desk to see a large mug of coffee, steam whisping from the inside the ceramic cup. He reached over and picked the mug up, taking a small sip from it and letting high octane taste of the coffee recharge his taste buds. He smiled faintly. If only it were as easy to find an answer to a missing persons case as it was to feel warmed by the sip of a good cup of joe.

A knock at the door.

Before answering, Keller sighed and realized that it was time to get back to normal duties of politics and terrorist threats.

"Yes? Come in," he finally answered.

"Mr. Secretary?" a woman poked her head in the door first as she stepped in.

"Ah, Jennifer, come in! It's good to see an old face again!" he said cheerfully as he recognized the face of his own secretary.

"Yes, I was beginning to wonder if any of the choas would die down!" she smiled as she walked in with a paper in her hand.

"What can I do for you?" Keller asked.

"You received a call early this morning from the special forces unit that you sent to investigate the dissappearance of Project Seven, and Project Five. They said that they haven't found any traces of them besides the blood trails on the roof, but apparently there were several witness _inside_ the building who've given a matcing description of Project Seven," she handed him the report and talked as he read for a moment.

"...It seems that she has saved more than we first imagined! These people claim that she destroyed an unknown "metallic creature", saving them from certain death," he cracked a smile just lightly.

"Yes sir, although I'm not sure what a "metallic creature" could possibly be," she said confused.

"Ah, well... Who knows this day and age?" he laughed as he continued to read.

"According to this, she asked to get to the roof... So she must have known that Project Five was there somehow... But, how, I wonder?" Keller set the paper down still glancing at it, his hand covering his mouth in a contemplating fashion.

"That other paper below the report is the form that you requested as well..." she said with a little less of a smile.

"Is this all then?" Keller asked.

"Yes sir," Jennifer answered.

"Thank you, make sure to inform me when they call next," he dismissed his secretary.

"Of course, thank you sir," she began to walk out of the office.

"Oh, and Jennifer," she turned as hearing Keller call for her, "I suppose that I don't need to tell you that these matters are strictly confidential, and shouldn't be released to anyone other than myself as well as the Vice President and President?"

Jennifer smiled, "Of course sir," and she left.

Keller picked up the paper in one hand, glancing over it again, and took another sip of his coffee with the other. He turned that paper over and placed it on his desk, looking over the other.

**"Certificate of Death"  
**  
He read the form that would most likely needed to be filled out for the reports when he would have to call off the investigation. The only reason why he was thinking this already was because the investigation and search was to be a quiet and confidential race against time. And it would be too soon that the press would find out what they were doing, so they would need to call off the search to seal any information as quickly as possible.

It had only been about a minute after his own secretary had left the room when his intercom beeped.

::Mr. Secretary?:: she asked in a rather confused voice.

"Yes?" he asked, still looking over the documents in front of him.

::Tom Banachek is here to see you..:: she replied.

"Really?... Well send him in then," Keller put down the papers and looked to the door as it burst open.

Even though the President had disbanded Sector Seven, Banachek and Simmons were too far into the business of information not to be made useful, still, to the government. So Keller managed to interest the President into making Banacheck head of the Informations Specialties unit, Simmons working under him.

"A moment ago I received some information that I absolutely _knew_ you would be interested in hearing," he smirked.

"Well? What is it then?" Keller asked.

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It was the last class of the day, there only being about fifteen minutes left, but they were excrutiatingly too long.

Sam hated school. First he hated it because he was officially dubbed a "geek" and was separated from Mikaela by a thousand other levels of popularity... Okay, so he was only separated from her three seats away but it was still too big of a separation for him. He looked over to her as the teacher had turned his back to write mathematical formulas on the board. She was sitting with her arms crossed, and looking rather distraught over the questions on the worksheet in front of her. Of course Sam knew that she had many other things on her mind, which made her even more stressed, just as it did to him. He gave a slight wave, which in his favor, brought Mikaela's attention to him. She smiled and gave a wave back.

"Is there something you need, Mr. Witwicky?" the sound of the teacher's voice made Sam jump and look towards the front of the classroom.

"Uh, no.. I-uh... No, nothing..." he crossed his arms and looked back down to his worksheet, looking as if he were trying his hand at figuring out the problems that were laid in front of him.

"Good to hear..." the teacher commented sarcastically as he turned back to the chalkboard.

Sam looked back to Mikaela who was very quietly laughing, making Sam smile as well. Yep. Everything was beginning to feel more at home again -

The cell phone in Sam's pocket vibrated quietly, signaling that he was receiving a text message. Mikaela suddenly realized that the new cell phone in her purse was also quietly vibrating. They both were quick at pulling their phones out and secretly looking at the message on the screens. Sam's head shot up and looked at Mikaela, both looking rather surprised.

'What do we do?' Mikaela mouthed the question to Sam.

Sam put a finger up to signify that he would look into it, so that she could just sit tight for a moment.

"Uh... Uh sir?" Sam held a hand up.

"What is it _this_ time, Mr. Witwicky?" The teacher sighed.

"I'm uh... I'm not feeling well, can I run to the bathroom real quick?" he asked in a rushed and urgent tone.

The teacher cringed at the idea of another student getting sick in his classroom, "Yes, by all means, go!"

Sam got up from his seat and rushed out of the room and down the hall, into the boys restroom where he got his cell phone back out of his pocket and reread the message first.

It was an "AOL" instant message from Bumblebee, and it read **"They found Cat!!"**

Sam laughed loudly, raising both hands in the air, "YEAH!"

A stall door opened, revealing another boy from the school who went up to the sinks to wash his hands as he gave Sam a strange look as if to ask, "What are you doing?"

Sam put the phone in his pocket to hide it quickly and nodded at the boy as he walked out, "How ya doin' man?"

The boy didn't answer and just walked out as Sam pulled his cell phone back out, texting a message quickly to Bumblebee.

**"We'll be out of class in a few minutes!"**

To which Bumblebee replied, **"I'll be here!"**

"Everything okay now Sam?" the teacher asked as Sam walked back into the classroom.

"Yeah.. Yeah everything's good," he tried to keep from smiling.

Sitting down at his seat, out of the corner of his eye, Sam could see Mikaela leaning forward to see what the verdict was. He looked over at her and merely smiled sheepishly. The grin gave Mikaela a sort of "thumbs up" and her own smile went from ear to ear as she closed her books and put away her school supplies and folders in her messanger bag. Just as she finished this, the bell rang, and Mikaela and Sam jumped up from their seats and quickly met out in the hallway.

"So it's really her?! It's Cat?!" Mikaela was close to screaming in excitement.

"I hope so!" Sam exclaimed as he and Mikaela shoved their way through the halls and out of the school to an awaiting Bumblebee.

"Me too.." Mikaela gave Sam and hopeful smile, and he hugged the girl with one arm around her shoulders.

"It's her... It's gotta be her..." he reassured.

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Instead of a Chapter Teaser, (because at this point a chapter teaser might give everything away) I'm going to give you something else to look forward to.

As you may know, I've announced the arrival of my newest story **Project Seven: Soul Reconnaissance**.

I will be posting the final chapter tomorrow, and then on Monday I will be posting a sort of preview for Soul Recon.

So keep an eye out!!


	35. A Wish from the Grave

So I suppose that this is it! This is the last actual chapter that I'll post to this story! First, the thank you's.

**Ford B, Elita One, Psychic-Ghost, Jazzy Kat, NoaWhan, Ramen Noodels, the-human-error, Fk306animelover, HotShot14, Red Wasabi, yutakayumi, and Fennecfox03.**

Thank you to all of those who have ever once reviewed, or reviewed with every chapter to my story. Every review that I've ever received has been just that much more little bit of inspiration to continuing on. If I have missed a name, my absolute apologies.

Don't forget! I'm gonna post a bit of a preview for **Project Seven: Soul Reconnaissance**. Most likely on Monday, but if not, not too long after. So even as I mark this story as "Complete", I'm going to make one last post.

As I've promised, the last chapter to **Project Seven**.

**_A Wish from the Grave_**

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It wasn't the same feeling as before. It seemed like just a few moments ago she felt like she was floating on a cloud. Now her whole body was racked with soreness, and pain. She couldn't feel the connection to her right arm, so she figured that it had been taken off for some sort of emergency. Her left arm felt sore, as if she had been lifting weights for days straight. And her legs felt the worst of all, hardly having any power at all to move them... Wait... She wasn't supposed to feel pain in her metal legs...

Cat's eyes opened slowly. She could barely make anything out for a moment, before her left eye suddenly focused as quick as someone had flipped a light switch. Her right eye still buried in haze, focused slowly, having to bat them a few times to get a clear image. She looked around, and realized that she was in a soft bed, with warm sheets. Her right arm was, indeed, missing. Her left arm, however, looked as though someone had placed an IV drip in it. She looked to her left wrist and saw that there was a restraint holding it to the bed railing. Cat's eyes went wide as her mind went back to being in the hospital ward at the Hoover Dam, where she had grown up. She gave the restraint an experimental tug, but she realized that she was nowhere near full strength. She felt like she had the strength of a newborn kitten at best. Then she realized something.

-My.. legs...- she thought as she looked down to the sheets, covering the pained limbs.

She couldn't pull the sheets up because of the restraint on her left wrist, so she reached down with her fingers and began pulling at the sheets, reeling them up until she stopped in absolute shock. The bottom of the sheets had come up just enough to reveal... five pink toes... She almost couldn't move for a moment before she reeled up the sheets even more, revealing two, thin, human legs. She gave them a test twitch, but that was all that she could do. She knew that they were real, because the pain that she was feeling from them was more real than she thought it would be, but she didn't care. She had human legs... Human features.. She then noticed that she had restraints on both ankles.

Cat was about to question as to why she was being restrained, when a voice interrupted her thoughts.

"You're awake!" A woman doctor entered the room and grabbed the chart which was sitting in a special bin by the inside of the door.

The doctor was a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, blonde hair, which was pulled back into a tight bun at the back of her head, and dark blue eyes which looked more cheerful than Cat could currently stomach. Her bright smile and cheerful voice brought no confidence to Cat as to what the woman's intentions were, which made the young girl glare at the woman.

The doctor sat at the edge of the bed, her bright smile turned into a raised eyebrow expression, "Is there something wrong?"

No answer.

"Are you hurting anywhere? You're on some pretty strong painkillers now, but they're going to wear off pretty soon," she scribbled on the clipboard.

No answer.

The doctor looked up with another raised eyebrow expression, "Do you have a sore throat? Loss of voice? What's the matter? I can't read minds you know. If something hurts you need to tell me."

Cat's glaring eyes darted from the doctor down to the restraints on her wrist, then back up to the doctor's face.

The doctor noticed the motioning. She looked to the restraints, and then sighed as she looked back to Cat's face.

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry, but we were told to take extra precautions to ensure that you stay put. They even sent _guards_ to stand watch around this floor and your room!" she pointed outside the door, pointing out the two men in suits standing guard.

"I really am sorry about that. But you have to understand, it's not every day that we get a young lady in here with the strange type of qualities as you have," she got up and went to the side of Cat's bed, taking a small pen light out of the pocket of her lab coat and shined it carefully in and out of Cat's left eye specifically.

"Can you see out of this eye?" she asked. Cat looked at the woman with a questioning expression. This made the doctor giggle a little.

"You're looking at me as though to ask if I've lost my mind, but I can imagine that with a yellow eye like that, you've probably had questions asked about it before, haven't you?" the doctor put the pen light back into her pocket.

Cat's eyes went very wide, in a shocked expression. First new legs, now a new eye?!

The doctor suddenly looked confused, "What's wrong? Are you feeling pain anywhere?"

Cat actually shook her head on this question, and tugged at her wrist restraint.

"Whoa! Take it easy! Those things will rub you raw if you work at it enough," the doctor warned.

Cat realized that no matter how strong she was, at the moment she was in a weakened state, and she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. The doctor sighed and started to scribble back down on her clipboard.

"I'm Doctor Thacker, by the way. If you need anything, just press that call button on that control near your hand there," she said as she looked up to the girl while placing her pen into her front pocket, "It's not very often that we have someone here that the federal government is looking for. Though they wouldn't tell us what it is that they want with you..." she gave Cat an expectant look.

"...And I suppose you won't tell me either. I understand, it's really none of my business. Your health is the only stake in this that I have for now," Doctor Thacker walked over to the door and placed the chart back into the plastic bin. She looked back at the girl once more and said, "If you need anything... Or if you need to talk... I'll be here."

And she promptly left. Cat had been staring the woman down with a hard glare as she exited. Her glare lifted as she realized something. Normally she would have a hatred of human doctors because she had always been poked and prodded as a child, but this was different. Her hatred was as it was because she noted that the woman was human, specifically. She noted that in her memories, she questioned as to why she put up with being around these humans. It was almost as if she were channeling the feelings of-

"Of course!" Cat said aloud, her eyes widened. She didn't even pay attention to one of the guards looking in at her for a few seconds to make sure that she was all right.

-I remember now! This was all of _Five's_ doing! That transmutation circle that she changed... That's the reason why I'm here...- Cat thought as she laid her head back onto the slightly propped up headrest.

She looked over to the windows and noticed all of the colors of the sunset. For some reason, this calmed the young fighter. Her eyes suddenly felt heavy, and the quiet in her room and on the floor that she was on, she drifted off to sleep.

"Cat?" a familiar voice brought the girl out of her calming sleep.

Cat's eyes batted open slowly and immediately noticed that the sun had set completely outside, and it was pitch black out.

"Cat?" Another voice asked, making the girl turn her head and see Sam and Mikaela standing to the left side of her bed, looking down at her with worried looks. There were also two people there that Cat didn't recognize, an older couple.

"Cat? Is it really you?" Mikaela asked in an unsure tone.

-Why wouldn't it be me?- Cat thought for a second as her mind went back to the reason why she may have looked different to her friends.

A smile crossed the fighter's face as she looked up with shimmering eyes at Sam and Mikaela, "Yeah... It's me guys... It's really me..." her voice was raspy and frog-like.

The two teens smiled as Mikaela reached down and did her best to hug Cat, "We thought... We thought you were dead!" she stood back up, giving a slight frown.

"I had to... do some... things before... I could... come back..." Cat smiled.

"So this is the young woman who saved our son on more than one occasion," the older man hugged an arm around the woman standing next to him, who was on the verge of tears.

"It seems we owe you a lot... Thank you," the man smiled.

Cat looked to Sam and Mikaela, confused.

"Cat, this is my mom and dad. They're the only ones besides me, Mikaela and the government who know about you... Well us and the Autobots," Sam chuckled.

Cat looked back to Sam's parents who regarded her with warm smiles and nods. Her own facial expressions relaxed into another smile.

"What happened to you Cat?" Mikaela asked.

Cat's face twisted into a contemplative expression as she thought about where to start explaining everything that's happened to her up till now. She was about to start on a story when she heard footsteps walk into the room. The four visitors turned to reveal another familiar face.

"I'm sorry to intrude. But I needed to see for myself, if the rumors were true," Secretary Keller stepped forward, "Do any of you mind if I have a word with this young lady?"

"Uh..." Sam looked to Cat who nodded slightly with a serious look on her face, "S-sure... Come on guys, we'll go find those soda machines."

The four left the room and Keller brought a chair over to Cat's bedside and gave her a smile as he sat down.

"Well... It's good to see that you're still with us," he tried to start the conversation.

"How long have... I been here?" Cat's raspy voice strained to get out.

"According to our investigation team, you were brought here late last night after having been found in an alley next to the building where we found your's and the other's blood on the rooftop. It was very strange. We didn't find you there the first several thousand times that we looked, but we found you there three days after the events of the battle. Do you remember what happened to you?" Keller asked.

Cat looked down at her new legs, which rested comfortably under the warm bed sheets. She wondered for a moment if Sam or Mikaela had noticed those yet and she smirked.

"Yes and no... I remember some parts of... what happened during... the battle... But as to how I ended up... where I did... Nothing comes to mind..." her throat was becoming more and more sore with every word, so she knew that she must have been screaming for a while.

"And how about the reason why your looks have changed? Do you remember how that transpired?" he asked, curious.

"Yeah... I know why that is..." Cat began to explain.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Flashback

"At least this way... There will be nothing... left of us... to pick up after..." she looked into the eyes of Five with tears stinging her own and continued, "I can't heal us Five... And neither can you now... you're too weak and you're dying... just the same as me..."

Five's eyes widened and she made to try and shake her head, but could only manage a slight twitch in her neck. Her harsh breathing in her chest increased as she reached to put a hand on Cat's cheek. Cat closed her eyes, warm tears falling from her eyes onto Five's soft hand. Before Cat had realized it, Five had taken her hand back and brought her other one up as well, slightly clapping them together, then dropping them to the ground. Cat's own eyes went wide in surprise as she saw the transmutation circle that she had made begin to change forms and twist into a different shape. When the blue light that had formed from Five's change had gone away, Cat looked at the circle and looked at Five with a questioning face.

"But... That would never work... You know that it... can't work!" Cat tried to make sense of what Five was doing.

She looked over the paint circle that had changed and had immediately recognized it as a fusion spell. Five was going to attempt to fuse the two together, healing both of them in the process.

End Flashback

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"A fusion spell? Is that even possible?!" Keller was astounded.

Cat smirked, "Well I'm here... aren't I?"

"Truly this is all so very amazing!" he said happily.

"Five wanted to heal us... so that we would... become one... So that we could... be even more... powerful... But she died first..." Cat said regretfully.

Keller looked to the girl and saw the pain of loss in her face, "I'm sorry for you... I understand that she was as close to family as you had..."

Cat suddenly looked up to Keller, an angry look on her face, "So I assume that... You want me back to... that facility... More testing... right?!" her raspy voice grew louder in anger.

"Absolutely not! I didn't lie when I promised you citizenship then, and I'm going to keep to my promise! As well as the fact that I've spoken to the president about your situation and we've agreed to something," he smiled brightly.

Cat gave the secretary a questioning look.

"Because you are who you are, you've never been given a chance at starting a life for yourself. So the federal government is going to be providing you with a stipend every month, for the rest of your life. It'll be enough to get you on the right track to having a normal life, and perhaps a little extra fun money to go along with it," he smirked.

"Uh... How much exactly are... we talking about?" Cat asked, curious.

Keller laughed, "Well, we'll talk exact amounts another time. For now, I'd like you to think of a name."

"A name?" Cat asked.

"Yes. A first, middle, and last name for an official birth certificate that we'll be needing to fill out to certify you as an American citizen. I know that this is a bit sudden, so I'll give you a few days to-"

"I know exactly what I want to be named..." Cat interrupted.

"But... Don't you think that it would be best to give it some thought?" Keller asked.

"Ever since the battle at Mission City, I knew exactly what I wanted to be called... That is if I were to survive like I had," Cat replied flatly.

Keller looked around for a moment as if he were wondering what the girl could possibly be thinking of, then he looked back to her and said, "Yeah, okay. We'll get all of those details hammered out later."

Standing up and scooting the chair back a few feet, Keller looked to the girl, "We'll keep in contact. For now you just get some rest."

Just before the secretary got to the door, he snapped his fingers and turned back around, "Oh and, there's one more thing I need to discuss with you. I've spoken to Doctor Thacker, and she's sure that another day in here and you'll be ready to be moved to a rehabilitation clinic. We'll be moving you to a government rehabilitation facility tomorrow afternoon."

Cat's eyes widened, "Forget it! I won't allow myself... to live at another government... laboratory!"

"Well the hospital is releasing you tomorrow, "Keller sighed, "Where do you suppose that you should stay after that?"

"She can stay with us!" Sam's mom walked in suddenly, Cat and Secretary Keller looking to her startled.

"I uh... I wasn't listening to your conversation, I just happened to hear that last part..." she shrugged.

"She'll be needing to stay in a facility where she can be properly monitored, " Doctor Thacker walked in, also "not" listening, "So someone will have to watch her to help her progress."

"Wait a second!" Cat's strained voice interrupted, the three in the room looking to her.

"Why do I, all of a sudden, need to... be watched all the time?!... I can take care of... myself!" Cat insisted.

"You need rehabilitation to re-train your weakened legs to walk. Not to mention you need to bulk up on proper nourishment. That requires the proper medical assisting," Doctor Thacker replied.

"Well, we've got plenty of space, "Sam's mom started, "And you could send someone out every day for her rehab! Not to mention I'm used to keeping the fridge stocked because I have a teenage son living at home!"

"I don't know... It _could_ work," Doctor Thacker thought aloud.

"Please... She saved my son's life... It's the least my husband and I could do for her," she pleaded.

"I suppose we could work something out. Good. Everything's settled. I'll be in contact with you in a few days to get all of the information that we talked about earlier. I'll talk to you then," Secretary Keller walked out of the room and informed the guards in charge of watching over Cat of what the moving plans will consist of.

"Since that's all settled, there's one last thing that I need from you," Doctor Thacker smiled.

Cat raised an eyebrow, "What's that?"

"Right now I need you to go to sleep! It's way past visiting hours, and I'll be signing for your release early tomorrow morning, so I need you to be well rested," the doctor crossed her arms.

"I guess I should be going then," Sam's mom started for the door.

"Wait!" Doctor Thacker followed her out, "I'm going to need your contact information so I can get in touch with you about a few different things."

Doctor Thacker had turned off the overhead lights in Cat's room, only the small lightly lit bulb above her bed, and the light off of the monitors were left to light up the room. Cat sleepily put her head back on the pillow, grumbling about the restraints left on her. It was getting quiet until she was startled into sitting up, eyes wide by sudden yelling.

"YES!" Sam and Mikaela had probably woke half the floor with their screeching.

Cat managed to catch her breath after the sudden startle, the heart monitor next to her bed going crazy. She laid back against the bed once more as she realized, "They must have gotten the good news," she smirked before feeling sleep take over her just a few minutes later.

Sam and Mikaela walked out to the parking lot, where the awaiting five Autobots were staying silent in their alt modes.

"So?! Was it her?! Was it Cat?!" Bumblebee asked with great anticipation.

The teens both smiled and Sam replied, "Yeah, Bee. It's really her."

Mikaela then looked to Sam with less of a smile and said, "Well I mean... She looks different... But it really seemed like it was her."

"Looks different? How so?" Ratchet asked.

"She has one of Five's yellow eyes... And she has human legs, according to the doctor anyway... But... I don't understand why she has one of Five's eyes..." Mikaela responded.

"Well, we didn't have enough time to talk to her, before the Secretary of Defense got here. We'll talk to her tomorrow, though," Sam smirked, "She's coming home with us! She'll be staying at my parents' house until further notice!"

"I'm glad to hear that. We can monitor her specially from there, easier than we can here," The medic sounded pleased.

"Yeah, but there's one thing that I don't think she'll be all that interested in..." Mikaela sighed.

"What's that?" Optimus asked.

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"FORGET IT!" Cat shook her head.

Earlier that morning, Cat had been released by Doctor Thacker, and was transported to Sam's house safely by none other than the Autobot medic, with his perfect ambulance disguise for cover. She was now sitting up in the guest bed at the Witwicky residence, arguing, of course.

"Come on Cat, it's only for a little while! Look, as soon as you can walk without our help, you can use the crutches. But you heard Ratchet, your legs only have the strength of a newborn infant, at best. If you try walking on them right now, you won't be getting very far," Mikaela reasoned.

"No walker! No way! I can do this on my own!" Cat refused.

"It's too early to try it yet! Just give yourself a couple of days with this, please?" Sam pleaded.

"Just you watch! I can do this on my own!" Cat flung the sheets from over her legs and as quickly as she could in her weakened state, flung her legs over the edge of the bed.

Sam and Mikaela made to grab Cat, in order to help her up like they were told to do by the physicians, but Cat stopped them.

"No..." she said flatly.

Touching her new feet to the floor, Cat stopped in the middle of what she was doing and took notice at how cold the floor was on her fresh skin. She tried to remember a time when she was younger that she had these feelings, but it was just too long ago. Her first real memory was from after her first surgery. She wiggled her toes for a second longer before her mind snapped back to attention. She had more pressing matters at the moment.

Holding onto the bed with her left hand, Cat gently shoved forward, putting her weight onto her legs as she stood up. For only a split second did she feel like shouting "I told you so!" before her new knees buckled. She would have hit the ground if it weren't for Sam and Mikaela being nearby to catch her.

"_Now_ will you use the walker?" The exasperated Sam asked.

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It had been two weeks since Cat's arrival to the Witwicky residence. And even though it had taken some serious persuasion, the two teens, as well as the Autobots had managed to talk Cat into first trying to walk with the walker, and she had once daily visits from a physical therapist. And now she was strong enough to walk with the aid of crutches for short periods of time.

Now, according to Ratchet, Cat's legs were no ordinary human legs. Her bone structure actually consisted of the same Titanium that Five's body consisted of; as well as most of her ribs, her left arm, her hips, her spinal chord, as well as her cranium. The rest of her body was her old, ordinary human bone structures. The reason that her body was weakened so much was because her muscles were still reacting and forming to her newer body.

The only new part of her body that was functioning one hundred percent was her left eye. She could see in the dark, which made it perfect for her to walk around on her own without being bothered by the nanny patrol which consisted of Sam, Mikaela and the Autobots. And each day she realized that she could pick up bio-signals, and heat signatures with this eye as well. That came in handy when she would get up to test her limits out and someone would be coming from afar. It gave her fair warning to sit or lay back down before she was caught, anyway.

What puzzled the Autobots the most was her unwillingness in explaining what had happened to her at Mission City. Cat remained quiet on the issue, because for the most part, she was still sorting out which memories were hers, and which memories were Fives. Fusing with someone else's body had it's drawbacks you know.

Cat was watching the sunset on the back porch alone. Sitting in a lounge chair, with her crutches lying on the ground next to her, she was content to just listen to the quiet of the city. She had managed to talk Sam, Mikaela and Bumblebee into taking a break from looking after her, and going to see a movie, as well as grabbing something to eat. Cat sighed to herself and closed her eyes. The warmth of the last rays of sun upon her skin made her muscles relax. Sleep was calling to her tired body. However before she drifted off, the sounds of a familiar Autobot leader transforming in the alley behind the house was made known to her.

Optimus walked over to Cat and carefully sat down on the grass next to the porch, knowing how Sam's father felt about there being marks in the grass.

"Hello, Optimus. What can I do for you today?" Cat asked.

"Good evening Catherine. Ratchet needed to finish his recharge, so he sent me to check in on you. How are you feeling today?" the Autobot leader asked.

Cat sighed, "I'm still alive, old man. You guys don't need to make sure of that every other hour of the day, you know."

Optimus rumbled with a slight amount of laughter, "I know that it's you, when you speak to me, Catherine, and not Five. I know because you've called me that once before."

Cat looked strangely up to Optimus and asked, "Why would you think that I was Five?"

Optimus looked down to Cat and replied, "You won't tell us why it is that you have Five's features.. I've wondered, at times, if you were truly yourself, or if Five was playing some sort of trick on us, wanting us to only believe that it was you. But I was sure it was you just now."

Cat gave a scowling look to Optimus, "You mean it took you two weeks to figure out that I was telling you the truth?!"

Optimus looked down to Cat, "Better safe than sorry, as you humans say."

Cat closed her eyes, and put her left arm, as well as her newly made right arm out of the strong Titanium that the government had made for her, behind her head as she scoffed. There was a moment of brief silence before Cat cracked open her eyes.

"Optimus?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, Catherine?"

"I think it's time that I needed to tell you what happened... That day in Mission City... I told part of it to Secretary Keller, but I didn't say all of it..." Cat started.

Optimus didn't say a word, fearing that saying something one way or another would scare Cat out of telling him. And he, as well as the others, desperately wished to know the secret.

"I made the transmutation circle to destroy us both... Me and Five... We were both dying, and it was a way for there not to have anything left over for anyone to have to pick up. But Five changed it at the last minute. She changed it into a fusion spell. She planned on joining our bodies and souls together to form an even more valuable fighter, which would heal her wounds, as well as stop the little problem that was killing me. By joining her blood and my blood together, we would have lived to fight even harder than we had before... But it wasn't meant to be... She died before either of us could activate the transmutation circle... I don't remember how it was that I gained the power that I did... But I managed to summon up the strength to activate it myself... The last thing I remember was seeing my life flash before my eyes... Next thing I knew... I was in the other realm... With Five... Standing before the door that all Alchemists pass through to the next life. I was standing before the door of judgment, ready to accept my fate."

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-Flashback-

"There's something that you need to know Seven..." Five's hand never left Cat's shoulder.

"What is it Five? You can tell me," Cat wanted to ease the troubled look on Five's face.

"You are not meant to die yet. The fusion spell that I cast was too late to save me, but when you activated it, your body fused with mine, of course. The body that formed in that fusion is able to support one of our souls, and the creatures from beyond that door took that body for completion... When you stand in front of that door, sister... You will not be judged and carried to the next life. Your soul will bind with that body, and you will carry on in the realm of the living. It is your fate to live now," Five explained.

"But... I can't go back without you! Wait a second! You could take that body just as easily as I could! Why don't you go back to the land of the living?" Cat asked.

"If I go back now... I may only use the gift that awaits me for personal gain... Going back for me now, would be to condemn me to the pain of anger... I would very most likely harm innocents of that world. Being here now, means that I could never understand the same love and devotion of the human race that you have... It is your fate that you serve the humans, and even those Autobots with your life. Just as they have hoped to serve you, you must live for them. It is not time for you to die, little sis... Your friends are waiting for you to return now anyway," Five replied.

"But what about you?" Cat asked.

Five looked up to her little sister's face, meeting it with a bright smile.

"I will go on to the next life... But first, you need to step in front of those doors, and accept your fate..."

"Can't we... Can't we still fuse together? Both minds together?" Cat asked, she already knew the answer.

Five reached out and touched a hand to Cat's face, wiping away the tears from her face.

"I died before the circle activated little sister. It would be impossible for us to coexist in that body. Your soul is the rightful owner of that body... Now go..." Five turned Cat around to face the doors and shoved her into the judgment zone.

Cat quickly stood up from where she had landed and looked back to Five, "No! Five! I can't go back without you!"

Before anything more could be said, the doors opened just a crack, making Cat turn back towards them.

"Huh?! What's happening?!" Cat watched as several hundred pairs of eyes looked down upon her.

Soon enough, Cat saw the outlined image of another body within the darkness of the other side of the door. There was a blinding light as she felt hands grab her from the back of her neck, down her arms and legs, and to her ankles. The hands rendered her helpless as they pulled her in. The light subsided and Cat saw herself floating nose to nose in front of her new body. She suddenly felt the urge to reach out to the body and take hold of it, so that's what she did. The light overpowered her once again, and she blacked out.

"Stay alive... Cat..." Five's sad voice faded.

-End Flashback-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, in essence, you are both Five and yourself?" Optimus asked.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that..." Cat smiled just a little.

"But what exactly happened when you fused your body with Five's? How did that golden spectrum heal everything in it's path?" Optimus wondered aloud.

"I suppose that when we fused, our Alchemy powers also energized. So any human in the path was healed by Five's abilities, and it combined with the efforts of my mechanical Alchemy skills, which helped put back together anything that was mechanical... But I still don't know exactly how our power reached that kind of power... I have a feeling that I don't completely remember everything yet. Which is why I didn't want to mention any of this, even after I had already told Keller. I realized that my memory isn't completely mine alone, but I have a lot of Five's memories as well, and I needed time to sort everything out... I apologize if I made you guys think that I was anyone other than who I really am," Cat sighed.

"Cat!" Sam's mom's voice yelled from the inside of the house.

"Hmm?" Cat looked behind her to see that there was a government agent in a suit in the living room, as well as Sam and Mikaela had returned from their date.

"I'll uh... I'll be right back," Cat reached down and grabbed her crutches, using them to pull herself up from the chair. She hobbled back into the house, and met with the others in the living room.

"Cat, this is a man from the federal government. He says he has some important documents to give, only to you," Sam's mom tried to play the part of humble hostess, but she seemed rather bothered by this man's presence.

"These documents were given to me straight from the president himself. They were meant for me to give straight to you, and no one else," the man handed Cat a manila envelope.

"My job has been completed. Have a nice day to you all, "The man said as he walked out of the house.

"Well wasn't he just pleasant?" Mikaela asked sarcastically.

"Well, what is it Cat?" Sam asked, his father joining them as the girl opened the envelope, pulling out several sheets of paper, as well as a laminate sheet.

The top sheet was a letter straight from the president's office, as Cat read it aloud a few sentences.

"You are hereby certified as a citizen of the United States of America. Please keep all of this information safe and confidential to yourself and those most trusted by you..." Cat pulled the laminate sheet out from underneath the top sheet and smiled when she read it over silently to herself.

"What is it?" Mikaela asked.

Cat handed the laminated sheet to the girl, still smiling. Mikaela read it aloud.

"Birth Certificate? This certifies the birth of... of..." Mikaela looked up to Cat with an astounded look.

"Go on. Say it. You better learn it now, because that's my legal name from here on forward," Cat smirked.

Mikaela went back to reading it, "This certifies the birth of "Catherine Lillian Andrews" on January first, nineteen eighty-seven... You were born on New Years?!" Mikaela's smile grew more and more as she read the lines in front of her.

Cat's face went into a contemplative look, "Was I? It's the first I knew about it. I was always told how old I was. I wasn't ever told what day I was born on. That may very well be it, then." she smiled.

"Well you're just full of surprises aren't you?" Sam's dad laughed.

There were familiar rumbles in the backyard, indicating that the other Autobots had arrived. Cat knew that Optimus had probably intercommed the information that she had given him to the others, or perhaps Bumblebee had alerted them that there was a familiar black SUV out in front of the house, four agents inside.

Cat, Sam and Mikaela walked out back to see that all five Autobots were standing before them. They looked down to the children.

"What did they want from you today?" Ironhide asked in an annoyed tone. He, as well as the other Autobots were grateful that the government had allowed them to stay, but they did not like them coming by the house to bother the Witwicky's every other day.

"Just to give me some information that I'd need to start a new life," Cat smirked.

"Catherine, something bothers me about what Five has done for you," Optimus spoke suddenly.

"What's that?" Cat asked.

"I would have thought that Five _wanted_ to come back here to take over the planet. Why didn't she take that opportunity?" the Autobot leader asked, Sam and Mikaela looked confused to the question, but of course Optimus had filled the other Autobots in on their conversation.

"She wasn't herself here on Earth anymore... Her soul was torn into a monster of sorts. Her revenge poured hatred into it. When she had finally died and went to the other realm, she realized her true nature. And that nature turned into a wish... That wish was for me to survive, and to carry on as the person she could only have hoped to be. She wanted me to live, and help this world as best I could..." Cat looked to the sunset, the colors of orange, red, and yellow swirled in the sky.

"It was her wish... A wish from the grave..."

----------------------------------------------------------------

**I dreamed I was missing**

**you were so scared**

**but no one would listen**

**cause no one else cared**

**after my dreaming**

**I woke with this fear**

**what am I leaving**

**when I'm done here**

**so if you're asking me I want you to know**

**when my time comes **

**forget the wrong that I've done**

**help me leave behind some **

**reasons to be missed**

**don't resent me **

**when you're feeling empty **

**keep me in your memories**

**Leave out all the rest, Leave out all the rest**

**Don't be afraid**

**I've taken my beating**

**I've shared what I made**

**I'm strong on the surface**

**not all the way through**

**I've never been perfect **

**but neither have you**

**so if you're asking me I want you to know**

**When my time comes**

**forget the wrong that I've done**

**help me leave behind some**

**reasons to be missed**

**don't resent me**

**when you're feeling empty**

**keep me in your memories**

**leave out all the rest**

**leave out all the rest**

**Forgetting, all the hurt inside you've learned to hide so well**

**pretending, someone else can come and save me from myself**

**I can't be who you are**

**I can't be who you are**

"Leave out All the Rest" Linkin Park


	36. Soul Recon Preview

Hey guys! As you all know, I promised a bit of a preview for the new series of Project Seven. And here it is.

I'm going to take a couple weeks break from writing, so don't expect to see the new story up until closer to Christmas. I am going to be pretty busy with Driver's Helper, where I'm actually in the trucks with the package car drivers delivering packages. After I do that in the same day I go work my normal midnight shift at the hub where I'm sorting packages up to 70 lbs at a needed rate of 1200 per hour for about 5 hours. Then on Saturdays I do about four hours of hub work. So my writing schedule, needless to say, is going to be a little tight. Even though I have written out a few chapters of it already, I would like to try and keep some space between what I'm writing and what I'm posting.

So here it is!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Project Seven: Soul Reconnaissance**

**A few months after the battle at Mission City, Cat and the Autobots are given the opporitunity of a lifetime by the United States government. They are moved into the Hoover Dam facility (with the exception of Bumblebee who remains with Sam and Mikaela in Tranquility) to try and adapt to a new and more normal lifestyle for everyone. The problem is, "normal" isn't exactly in any of these guys' vocabulary. Almost every day is a struggle for them to adapt to life on Earth (as well as life of the free for Cat). Things seem to slow down a little at first, but with new arrivals, the Autobot's curious minds, Sam and Mikaela's teenage lifestyle, Cat's mischievious nature, and possible Decepticon activity, life may as well be as exhausting as it was during the battle in Mission City itself. Other factors seem to be hindering our lovable character Cat. Why has she taken the liking to disappearing for lengthy periods of time? Why can't she use Alchemy anymore? Will she ever be able to let go of her training and live peacefully? And why, after a few years, does she begin receiving strange letters that she won't share with anyone? -Sigh- Things are _definitely_ not going to be "normal".**


	37. Just to let you know!

**Hey all! Just wanted to let you know that Soul Recon will be posted on:**

**Saturday, December 22nd.**

Driver's Helper has been painful...ugh... But I've managed to continue things along, coming up with new ideas for more parts of this story, and more recently a surge in actual writing efforts -Yay!- So everything's going fine. However it snowed and sleeted so Running around in the cold is going to be "fun" this next week --;;; I hope everyone's holiday season is going well, and for pete's sake be nice to your UPS man/woman! You'd be surprised at what they do to make sure you get your package!!


	38. AN

Hey guys!

Just thought that I would post to this story to let anyone who hasn't noticed know that Soul Recon is up, which you can check out the first eight chapters of it right now!

Also, I've decided to take a little hiatus from writing for a couple of weeks. I'm transitioning from just a part time job, to having a part time job, a full time job as well as part time schooling, so I need to reformat myself, so to speak, and get used to a new schedule. It's a lot to take on, but I've done it before, and I have no doubts that I can do it again. But fear not! For I shall keep up with the chapters that I have already written. Actually it's usually good for me to take a while to think about my story. Usually, when I do this I come up with some newer ideas. I've got a lot of ideas right now, but there's a lot to sort out, so the extra time will be helpful!

Thank you all for your interest in my stories!

With luv,

BurntRose84


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